belletrist
noun
bel·le·trist
bel-ˈle-trist 
variants
or less commonly belle-lettrist
: a writer of belles lettres
Nikos Demou was a prosperous advertising executive in Athens with his own firm until runaway success with a series of books, essays and articles on the Greek identity crisis enabled him to earn a more than comfortable living as a journalist and belletrist.—
Robert Fox
Robert FoxExamples of belletrist in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
The philologists, unlike the belletrists, were methodical and systematic, and given to expounding those methods and systems in lengthy treatises.
—Evan Kindley, The New York Review of Books, 16 Feb. 2023
Harrison is almost the textbook example of a belletrist—someone who writes essays more for their aesthetic effect than anything else.
—Bill Heavey, WSJ, 16 Sep. 2022
Locke the glossy belletrist gave way to Locke the fellow-traveller, Locke the savvy champion of proletarian realism.
—Tobi Haslett, The New Yorker, 11 May 2018
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Evan Kindley, The New York Review of Books, 16 Feb. 2023
Harrison is almost the textbook example of a belletrist—someone who writes essays more for their aesthetic effect than anything else.
—Bill Heavey, WSJ, 16 Sep. 2022
Locke the glossy belletrist gave way to Locke the fellow-traveller, Locke the savvy champion of proletarian realism.
—Tobi Haslett, The New Yorker, 11 May 2018
Cite this Entry
“Belletrist.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/belletrist. Accessed 31 Oct. 2025.
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