transcendentalist
1
9.9
- noun
- /ˌtræn.sɛnˈdɛn.təl.ɪst/
- Literature
- In his 1866 Lowell Lectures, he alludes to Emerson's poetry and mentions him and other Transcendentalists by name.
- Emerson and other transcendentalists
- American transcendentalists
Examples
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Ralph Waldo Emerson was a prominent transcendentalist who influenced many writers of his time.
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So we were within hearing of the transcendentalists, though not among them.
Academic text (2017) -
Henry James, Sr. was not the only member of the James family who had Transcendentalist connections.
Academic text (2017) -
What precisely were the intellectual sources of transcendentalist philosophy?
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James was a poet who published in the Transcendentalist journal The Dial.
Academic text (2017) -
Finally, how are we to assess the contest between the empiricist and transcendentalist views?
Academic text (1999) -
Such an ideal was characterized by the transcendentalist emphasis on present needs and the role of will over intellect.
Academic text (2002) -
The ideas of the leading Transcendentalists are not just a matter of academic interest and scholarly pursuit.
Academic text (2003) -
In addition to Emerson, the Transcendentalists Parker and Thoreau delivered public lectures on the regional lyceum circuit.
Academic text (2017) -
Many of the first Transcendentalists began as Unitarian ministers, including Emerson, Parker, Hedge, and John Weiss.
Academic text (2017)
Surface Forms
Morphology
transcendentalist = transcendental (semi-transparent) = transcend + al + ist
Formed by adding -ist to 'transcendental' in a regular way, but the referent (a member of the specific 19th-century philosophical movement) is a specialized/historical meaning not fully predictable from the components.
Etymology
Transcendentalist comes from transcend, which means 'go beyond', and the ending -ist, which means 'a person who'. The same root is in ascend ('to climb up'), so a transcendentalist is a person who believes we can go beyond the physical world to find spiritual truth.