[f. prec. + -IST.] One who believes in or advocates a theory of transmutation, esp. that of the transmutation of species in organic nature; a transformist. Also attrib.
It might also be, and prob. has been, applied to one believing in the transmutation of metals: an explanation given in Dictionaries from Worcester onward.
1832. Q. Rev., XLVII. 117. The transmutationist endeavours to account, by physiological laws, for the successive appearance and extinction of different races of animals, of which the earth offers the record.
1844. Monthly Rev., March, 384. It is the doctrine of the Transmutationists.
1847. Darwin, in Life & Lett. (1887), I. 355. You have introduced several sentences against us Transmutationists.
1850. Fraser’s Mag., XLII. 368. The author of the Vestiges, like the older transmutationists, assumes the mammals of the sea as the ancestors of the mammals of the land.
1866. Reader, 20 Feb., 153/2. Owen … pleads … strongly and manfully in favour of the transmutationist doctrine.
1909. Q. Rev., Oct., 421. When Darwin first propounded his doctrine of descent … there were few ‘transmutationists.’
