Sym|bol|ist

sym|bol|ist «SIHM buh lihst», noun, adjective.

–n.

1. a person who uses symbols or symbolism.

2. any one of a school of French and Belgian poets (including Verlaine, Mallarmé, and Maeterlinck) of the late 1800's, who sought to represent ideas and emotions by indirect suggestion, attaching a symbolic meaning as to particular objects and words, in a reaction against realism: »

The symbols of the symbolist school are usually chosen arbitrarily by the poet to stand for special ideas of his own (Edmund Wilson).

3. a painter who aims at symbolizing ideas rather than representing the form or aspect of actual objects, especially one of a recent school of painters who use representations of objects and schemes of color to suggest ideas or states of mind.

4. a person who has experience in the study or interpretation of symbols or symbolism.

5. a) a person who uses or advocates the use of symbolism in religious ceremonies. b) a person who holds that the elements of the Eucharist are not transubstantiated but are mere symbols.

–adj.

= symbolistic. (Cf. ↑symbolistic)

Sym|bol|ist «SIHM buh lihst», noun.

1. a symbolist poet or artist: »

The outstanding characteristic of the Symbolist movement lay in the fact that it evoked, rather than described; reflected, rather than stated (Atlantic).

2. a person who holds that the elements of the Eucharist are symbols.