The story
- Esperanto · derived from-isto
- Ancient Greek · derived from-ιστής
- Latin · derived from-ista
- Old French · derived from-iste
- Middle English · inherited from-ist
- English today-ist
From Middle English -ist, -iste, from Old French -iste and Latin -ista, from Ancient Greek -ιστής (-istḗs), from -ίζω (-ízō, “-ize, -ise”, verbal suffix) + -τής (-tḗs, agent-noun suffix). Equivalent to -ism + -t. Doublet of -ista. The speaker of a language sense is influenced by Esperanto -isto.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.