Columnist

How to spell columnist

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce columnist

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does columnist mean?

1. nounA writer who contributes a regular signed article, often expressing personal opinion, to a newspaper or magazine.

Columnist in a sentence

• The political columnist files an opinion piece every Sunday.

• As a finance columnist, she explains markets in plain language for the weekend edition.

Where does columnist come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word builds on column, which English took from the Latin columna, meaning a pillar or upright post, by way of Old French during the medieval period. By the 1700s 'column' had picked up the printing sense of a tall vertical division of text on a page, and a regular feature occupying such space in a newspaper came to be called a column too. From there the agent noun 'columnist' was coined in the early twentieth century, around the 1920s, to name the writer who produces such a recurring piece. The spelling trap is inherited directly from the parent word: 'column' carries a silent letter n at the end that nobody pronounces, yet in 'columnist' that very n suddenly springs to life and is sounded, which is precisely why writers who hear the n still sometimes leave it out. Remembering that a columnist literally fills a column keeps the buried n in place.

How the word is built

• column (from Latin columna: a pillar, later a vertical strip of text)
• -ist (one who does or makes)