artist

Meanings

1. A person who creates art, such as paintings, drawings or sculptures.
2. A person who does something with great skill and imagination.
3. A singer or band that makes music.

Example sentences

• "The artist painted a portrait of the old man."

  Level A2, Meaning 1

• "She is a talented artist and draws every day."

  Level A2, Meaning 1

• "My favorite artist just released a new song."

  Level A2, Meaning 3

• "He is an artist with a knife in the kitchen."

  Level B2, Meaning 2

Look-alikes and common mistakes

• painter : A painter works with paint. An artist can use any material.
• designer : A designer plans how something will look and work. An artist often creates for its own sake.

Word family and forms

Forms: artists

Word partners

Words and phrases that often go with "artist".

• a famous artist
• a young artist
• an artist's studio
• a street artist
• a graphic artist
• an artist at work

Origin

Artist came into English in the 1570s and 1580s from Middle French artiste, which took it from Medieval Latin artista, a master of the arts. It is built from art plus the ending -ist, which names a person who does something.

Checked against: Wiktionary, the free dictionary, Dictionary.com.

How to remember it

Artist is art plus ist, a person who does it. An artist makes art.

Test yourself

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