shootist
English edit
Etymology edit
Noun edit
shootist (plural shootists)
- (chiefly US, archaic) A person who is an expert user of firearms, especially a sharpshooter or a gunslinger in the Old West.
- 1895, O. Widmann, “An Hour with Baird's and Leconte's Sparrows near St. Louis, Missouri”, in The Auk, volume 12, number 3, page 94:
- Not being a "shootist," I cannot lay the bird before you.
- 1947, Charles J. Lovell, “The Background of Mark Twain's Vocabulary”, in American Speech, volume 22, number 2, page 94:
- Such terminations in -ist were very common at one time; my collection includes swimmist, sparrist, ballist, walkist, shootist, saloonist, and several others.
References edit
- Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., 1989.
- Random House Webster's Unabridged Electronic Dictionary, 1987-1996.