- a person who advocates the strictest application of the principles or standards in any field, or who insists on purity in language, style, etc.: When making hip-hop he began as a purist, putting most of the focus on solid lyrics and less on working with the music and production.
- a practitioner of purism, an early 20th-century style of art characterized by the use of simple geometric forms and images evoking manufactured objects: The Purists saw their painting as the next step in the evolution of modern art after Cubism, which they found too decorative.
- relating to or being a purist:The purist view of theater design is that if there is a column or pillar anywhere, there is a problem.
