ekklesiast

Learned borrowing from Ancient Greek ἐκκλησιαστής (ekklēsiastḗs). By surface analysis, ekklesia +‎ -ast.

ekklesiast (plural ekklesiasts)

1. Alternative spelling of ecclesiast.
   • 1876, Isokrates, translated by R[ichard] C[laverhouse] Jebb, “On the Peace [Or. viii.]”, in The Attic Orators from Antiphon to Isaeos, volume II, London: Macmillan and Co., →OCLC, chapter XVI (Isokrates.—Works.), section II (On the Internal Affairs of Greece), page 187:

     [O]ur competitors are as weak as ourselves. We save the Thebans, and they save us. It would be worth the while of either to provide pay for the ekklesiasts of the other.

   • 1997, Paul Bullen, “Lawmakers and Ordinary People in Aristotle”, in Leslie G. Rubin, editor, Justice v. Law in Greek Political Thought (Politikos; 3), Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, →ISBN, page 239:

     Aristotle indicates that ekklesiasts (members of the popular assembly) and legislators are not the same people when he says that “the decision of the legislator is prospective and universal rather than partial, while the ekklesiast and the dikast [lay judge in popular courts] decide about what is immediately present and definite” (Rhet I.1.1354b5-8).

   • 2001, W[illiam] Kendrick Pritchett, “The Athenian Prytany Calendar and Ekklesias”, in Athenian Calendars and Ekklesias (Αρχαία Ελλάς […]; 8), Amsterdam: J.C. Gieben, →ISBN, page 194:

     The ekklesia clearly was not meeting according to the festival calendar, for any allotted meetings could not have been used up by the third of Mounichion. Ekklesiasts drew pay for attendance; so there must have been a budget which could easily have been exhausted by the meetings in Elaphebolion.