shootist

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English

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Etymology

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From shoot +‎ -ist.

Noun

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shootist (plural shootists)

  1. (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

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  • Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., 1989.
  • Random House Webster's Unabridged Electronic Dictionary, 1987-1996.
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