[f. Gr. οἰκονόμος (see ECONOMY) + -IST. Cf. Fr. économiste.]
† 1. One who manages a household; a housekeeper. Obs. or arch.
1586. T. B., La Primaud. Fr. Acad., I. (1594), 100. A prudent man … may first become a good Oeconomist, that is, a governor and father of a familie.
c. 1645. Howell, Lett. (1650), I. II. xvii. 28. Mr Penry … will prove a great Husband, and a good Oeconomist.
1765. Wilkes, Corr. (1805), II. 219. I am got into lodgings of my own, and will endeavour to be as good an œconomist as my villainous nature will let me.
1857. Ruskin, Pol. Econ. Art, 11. The perfect economist or mistress of a household.
2. A manager in general; one who attends to the sparing and effective use of anything, esp. of money. Const. of.
1710. Shaftesb., Charac., III. § 1 (1737), II. 372. O wise Oeconomist, and powerful Chief, whom all the Elements and Powers of Nature serve!
1711. Steele, Spect., No. 64, ¶ 2. He is a good Oeconomist in his extravagance.
1725. Bradley, Fam. Dict., II. s.v. Lime, Every good Oeconomist will purchase as … cheap as he can.
1824. J. Johnson, Typogr., I. 553. He appears to have been but an indifferent œconomist.
1841. D’Israeli, Amen. Lit. (1867), 47. [He] was such a rigid economist of time, that every hour was allotted to its separate work.
3. One who practises or advocates saving.
1758. Herald, II. 199. No. 27. He is an œconomist in his expences.
1771. H. Mackenzie, Man Feel., xxxvi. (1803), 72. His aunt was an economist.
1796. Morse, Amer. Geog., II. 420. An Italian … must be a rigid economist.
1868. Freeman, Norm. Conq. (1876), II. vii. 115. Economists who pressed for the reduction of the public expenditure.
4. A student of, or writer upon, economics or political economy.
1804. Earl Lauderd., Publ. Wealth (1819), 354. To the economists commerce ought to have appeared a direct means of increasing wealth.
1827. Whateley, Logic (1836), 393. The great defect of … our own economists in general, is the want of definitions.
1866. Rogers, Agric. & Prices, I. Pref. Those facts which form the special study of the economist.
b. More fully, Political Economist.
1825. Miss Mitford, in L’Estrange, Life, II. x. 197. He [Mr. Monck] is a great Grecian and a great political economist.
1855. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., IV. 327. David Hume, undoubtedly one of the most profound political economists of his time, declared that our madness had exceeded the madness of the Crusaders.
c. One of the school of ‘Economistes’ (who flourished) in France in the 18th c.
1776. Adam Smith, W. N., IV. ix. A … considerable sect, distinguished in the French republic of letters by the name of ‘The Economists.’
1869. Buckle, Civiliz., II. vii. 328. Soon after 1755 the economists effected a schism between the nation and the government.
1878. Morley, Condorcet, Crit. Misc., 33. As a thinker he is roughly classed as an Economist.
