climatist

English

Etymology

From climate +‎ -ist.

Noun

climatist (plural climatists)

1. (rare) A climatologist.
   • 1844 July, “The Climate of the South of Devon, and its Influence upon Health, with short accounts of Exeter, Torquay, Babbicombe, Teignmouth, […] &c. By Thomas Shapter, M.D. […] London. 1842.”, in The Monthly Review, volume 2, number 3, page 320:

     In proof of which, let any man live on one side and then on the other side of a hill, or North and South—or even on the same side, so one part of that side be sheltered from the wind by trees, and the others open. A test like this is worth all the theories of all the climatists and meteorologists in the world.

2. (historical) One who believes that certain diseases, especially yellow fever, are mainly caused by local atmospheric conditions.

   Coordinate term: contagionist

   • 2003, Joanna Brooks, “Black Identity and Yellow Fever in Philadelphia”, in American Lazarus: Religion and the Rise of African-American and Native American Literatures, Oxford: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 156:

     Climatists, Benjamin Rush among them, attributed the disease not to the influx of tropical residents but to a season of unusually tropical weather in Philadelphia. […] Climatists and contagionists both viewed nativity or nationality as indices of susceptibility to the fever.

Related terms

• climatism
• climatologist