[a. Fr. analyste, f. analyser, by form-assoc. w. vbs. in -iser (= L. -īzāre, Gr. -ίζειν, Eng. -IZE), which have agent-nouns in -iste (L. -ista, Gr. -ιστης, Eng. -IST). See ANALYSE. Analyser, analyste, were thus formally analogous to latiniser, latiniste.] One who makes an analysis.
1. A mathematician skilled in modern algebraical geometry. (The only sense in 17–18th c., but now rarely used without qualification.)
1656. Hobbes, Elem. Philos., III. xx. Eng. Wks. I. 307. The analyst that can solve these problems without knowing first the length of the arch … shall do more than ordinary geometry is able to perform.
1675. Collins, in Rigaud, Corr. Sci. Men (1841), I. 212. A learned analyst, and a person fit to labour in discovering canons for the surd roots of equations.
1748. Hartley, Observ. Man, I. iii. § 2 ¶ 87. Till the Analyst obtains the true Root.
1841. J. R. Young, Math. Dissert., Pref. 7. [Berkeley] charged analysts with changing, at the close of the reasoning, the hypothesis upon which that reasoning commenced.
1869. J. Martineau, Ess., II. 136. A skill like that of the geometrical analyst.
2. spec. One skilled in chemical analysis; one whose profession it is to ascertain the chemical constitution of substances. (The common use now.)
1800. Henry, Epit. Chem. (1808), 424. The correct analyst ought to be well grounded in general chemical information.
1869. Daily News, 11 Aug., 4–5. In the stomach and liver of the child Dr. Letheby, the analyst to whom they were committed, found distinct traces of the same poison. Ibid. (1873), 7 Nov., 5/5. Public Analyst for Bethnal-green.
3. gen.
[1753. Chambers, Cycl. Supp., Analyst, a person who analyzes a thing, or makes use of the analytical method. (See 1.)]
1809. Coleridge, Friend, I. i. (1867), 4. Some pleasant analyst of taste.
1851. H. Spencer, Soc. Statics, xxii. § 3. Unobserved, perhaps, by the many, but sufficiently visible to the analyst.
1859. Bucknill, Psychol. Shaks., 3. Preeminently the most truthful analyst of human action.
