violist
/ˈvaɪ.əl.ɪst/noun
violist is a noun meaning “A person who plays the viol” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled V-I-O-L-I-S-T and has 3 syllables, and it appears about once in every 10 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of violist is violists.
What does violist mean?
noun
- 1
A person who plays the viol.
- 2
A person who plays the viola.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce violist?
- /ˈvaɪ.əl.ɪst/
As a noun (“A person who plays the viola”): /viˈəʊ.lɪst/, /viˈoʊ.lɪst/.
Violist has 3 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-violist_(viol).wav, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-violist_(violist).wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of violist
- violists plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is violist?
Violist appears about once in every 10 million words in written English, the 97,057th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Violist in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense person who plays the viola:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | altiste |
| German | Bratscher, Bratscherin, Bratschist, Bratschistin, Violaspieler, Viola-Spieler |
| Portuguese | violista |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does violist come from?
From viol + -ist.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).