"a racist, an advocate of racial theory, a believer in the superiority of a particular race," 1910, from racial + -ist. Also see racist. As an adjective from 1917.
Entries linking to racialist
racial adj.
"relating, pertaining to, or characteristic of an ethnic race or race generally," 1862, from race (n.2) + -ial. "A word of considerable frequency in the 20th century" [OED]. Related: Racially.
-ist
word-forming element meaning "one who does or makes," also used to indicate adherence to a certain doctrine or custom, from French -iste and directly from Latin -ista (source also of Spanish, Portuguese, Italian -ista), from Greek agent-noun ending -istes, which is from -is-, ending of the stem of verbs in -izein, + agential suffix -tes.
Variant -ister (as in chorister, barrister) is from Old French -istre, on false analogy of ministre. Variant -ista is from Spanish, popularized in American English 1970s by names of Latin-American revolutionary movements.