Irregularly <ancient Greekζῷον living being, animal (see zoonn.) + ‑istsuffix…
Irregularly <ancient Greekζῷον living being, animal (see zoonn.) + ‑istsuffix.
Notes
Compare also the apparently isolated formation zoonism in the source of quot. 1890:
1890
Either in themselves, however, or in their English derivatives, the Greek words—Ζάω, Ζῶ, Ζωή, Ζωός, Ζῶον, κ. τ. λ.—are sufficiently familiar to make ‘Zoönism’ immediately understood as denoting some conception or other of life.
J. S. Stuart-Glennie in L. M. J. Garnett, Women of Turkeyvol. I. p. lxiii
New English Dictionary (OED first edition) (1921) gives the pronunciation as (zōu·ŏnist) /ˈzəʊənɪst/ .
Meaning & use
Obsolete. rare.
1890–97
Designating a conception of nature as a living entity, or one that attributes life to all natural objects; of or relating to such a conception.
1890
According to the Zoönist conception of things, there is but one Living World, in which every single thing is conceived as akin to every other thing, sympathetically actable on by other things, and transformable into every other thing.
J. S. Stuart-Glennie in L. M. J. Garnett, Women of Turkeyvol. I. p. lxiv
1892
The conception of nature as itself living, or the Zoönist conception, and..the conception of nature as inclusive of beings of a superhuman character, or the Supernalist conception.
Athenæum 25 June 829/2
1897
Among the Zoönist poems are dialogues between personified natural objects.