a. [f. the name of the Roman historian Tacitus (54–117): see -AN.] Pertaining to Tacitus, or resembling his pregnant sententious style. So Tacitist, a student or follower of Tacitus; Tacitize v., intr. to write in the style of Tacitus.
1890. Lowell, Milton’s Areop., Lat. Lit. Ess. (1891), 101. He [Milton] is never weary of insisting on the *Tacitean distinction between liberty and license.
1907. Athenæum, 7 Sept., 265/3. Accurate scholarship, especially in matters of Tacitean diction.
1656. Earl Monm., trans. Boccalini’s Advts. fr. Parnass., I. xxiii. (1674), 24. He might like a *Tacitist have written the Civil Wars of Flanders.
1833. Roscoe, trans. Pellico’s Ten Years’ Imprisonm., xxxvi. With all my admiration for the genius of Tacitus, I had never much faith in the justice of *tacitising as he does.
