1610s, "one who generalizes," from general (adj.) + -ist. From 1894 as "one who engages in general studies" (opposed to specialist).
"specialist in the administration of anesthetics," 1943, American English, from anesthesiology + -ist.
"specialist in or practitioner of psychotherapy," 1894, from psychotherapy + -ist.
"specialist or expert in periodontics," 1913; see periodontal + -ist.
"condition in which the extremities perform slow, involuntary motions" (a form of childhood cerebral palsy), 1871, with -osis + Greek athetos "not fixed, without position or place, set aside," from athetein "to set aside, reject as spurious," from a- "not" (see a- (3))+ tithenai "place, set" (from reduplicated form of PIE root *dhe- "to set, put"). Coined by U.S. nerve specialist William Alexander Hammond.
half-alien character in the "Star Trek" U.S. entertainment franchise, developed and named 1964 by series creator Gene Roddenberry, who later said he was searching for an alien-sounding word and not thinking of U.S. physician and child-care specialist Benjamin M. Spock (1903-1998), whose name is of Dutch origin. The doctor wrote the enormously popular "Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care" (1946) and is the source of the first element in Spock-marked (1967), defined in OED as "(Adversely) affected by an upbringing held to be in accordance with the principles of Dr. Spock ...."
place in Wiltshire, Middle English Salesbury, Old English Searobyrg, Searesbyrig, Roman Sorbiodoni, Sorvioduni. The first element is a British Celtic word of uncertain sense; the second is *dunon "a hill, fort" or else Gaulish *duro- "fort, walled town." The first element was altered in Old English by folk etymology and the second replaced by its native translation, burh.
Salisbury steak (1885) is named for J.H. Salisbury (1823-1905), U.S. physician and food specialist, who promoted it.
In the Philadelphia Medical Reporter for January 10th, Dr. Hepburn describes the way in which the steak is prepared in the "Salisbury" treatment, which has acquired a great reputation in America for disordered digestion, and widely different diseases of a chronic kind, few drugs being employed simultaneously, and those chiefly of a tonic kind. The best slices of a round of beef are chopped off with dull knives, the object being rather to pound than to cut the meat. [from a report reprinted in several U.S. and British medical journals in 1885 that goes on to describe the method; this version from Homeopathic World, Aug. 1, 1885]
Incorrect use for "hamburger" generally traces to World War I and the deliberate attempt to purify American English of German loan words.
