centrist

noun · adjective

Simple meaning

Someone who takes a position in the political center.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

sehntrist

Say the bold part a little louder.

US device voice

IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈsɛntɹɪst

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

A person who takes a position in the political center
A person who advocates centrism.

adjective

Of, pertaining to, or advocating centrism.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty: C2 · Proficient (estimated)
Frequency: Uncommon

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: A person who takes a position in the political center

Used this way, centrist is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in government or politics contexts.

Emotional tone: Neutral
Formality: Neutral
Intensity: Not strongly marked
How common: Moderately common
Connotation: Matter-of-fact
Usage feel: Neutral and straightforward

Where it naturally appears

Government/politics

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

Takes

centrist positioncentrist partycentrist government

Other combinations

centrist coalitioncentrist groupnew centristcentrist politicscentrist leaders

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Word family

Words built from the same root.

centroidnounDerived noun
The center of mass of an object of uniform density.
centraladjectiveDerived adjective
In or near a center or constituting a center.
centrallyadverbDerived adverb
In or near or toward a center or according to a central role or function.

Related Words

Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: person who takes a position in the political center

centermoderate

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.