Skip to main content
violist

violist

3 6.5
A person who plays the viola
  • noun
  • /ˈvaɪə.lɪst/
: violista
  • Specifically, the violists and bassists seemed to improve more than the violinists and cellists.

Then then I look for The funny thing and there is such a violist.

Examples

  • That's when I saw her, the violist.

    Fiction book (1991)
  • But the price paid for volume was that such cellos were relatively difficult to play: the distance between the notes on the fingerboard meant that cellists could not perform with anything like the facility of violinists and violists.

    Academic text (1994)
  • The violists played with smooth, rich expressiveness, setting a standard for their colleagues in the other string sections.

    Blog text (31)
  • Female participation as violinists, violists, and cellists was already high and increased slightly.

    Academic text (1993)
  • At the age of seventeen, he was a member of the Minneapolis Orchestra, a full-time professional musician (a violist).

    Academic text (1994)
  • Examination of the total gain scores by instrument confirmed that violists and bassists improved the most, followed by violinists and then cellists.

    Academic text (2013)
  • Also a competent violist in his own right, Maestro Arden will join other individual players of the North Suburban Symphony in J.S. Bach.

    Blog text (19)
  • For instance, in 1997, Gillespie studied how visual cues affect the judgment of experienced adjudicators when assessing inexperienced and experienced violinists and violists.

    Academic text (2003)
  • With the usual pickup gang of Max Altman groupies, a fiddler, a cellist, and a violist, the Mozart Oboe Quartet smoothed us past the first part of the evening.

    Fiction book (1997)
  • Miles Hoffman is a talented violist who performs regularly with the American Chamber Players.

Surface Forms

violist singular
violists plural

Morphology

violist = viola (transparent) = viola + ist

Standard agentive formation from the instrument name 'viola' plus '-ist', meaning 'a person who plays the viola'.

Etymology

The word violist comes from the instrument name viola plus the ending -ist, which means 'one who does something', just like violinist or pianist. The name viola is related to the word 'violet' (the colour and the flower), so you can think of the viola as the violin's slightly larger, darker cousin, and a violist is simply someone who plays that instrument.