1874, American English, in reference to money policy; by 1884 as "one who advocates the expansion of the territory of his nation," from expansion + -ist. Related: Expansionism.
Entries linking to expansionist
expansion n.
1610s, "anything spread out;" 1640s, "act of expanding," from French expansion, from Late Latin expansionem (nominative expansio) "a spreading out," noun of action from past-participle stem of Latin expandere "to spread out, unfold, expand," from ex "out" (see ex-) + pandere "to spread, stretch" (from nasalized form of PIE root *pete- "to spread").
-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.