completist

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kəmˈpliːtɪst/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

Etymology 1

From complete +‎ -ist.

Noun

completist (plural completists)

1. (originally science fiction fandom slang) A collector who strives to obtain a complete collection of some type of thing, especially a fan who aims to own or consume the complete output of a particular author, publisher, musician or band.
   • [1944, John Bristol Speer, Fancyclopedia‎^[1], Completist:

     completist - A dope who tries to have a complete collection in some line. The line may be as broad as having all the prozines ever published, or as narrow as collecting all the Golden Atom tales or all official correspondence during one's incumbency in some office. […]]

   • 1953 Winter, William "Bob" Tucker, “The Philadelphia Story”, in Science Fiction Newsletter‎^[2], number 28, archived from the original on 22 December 2019, page 13:

     Ozzie Train, secretary. Ozzie needs little introduction, other than that he is the remaining half of Prime Press, and a genuine completist.

   • 1997 June, Harvey Pekar, “CD Reviews”, in JazzTimes, →ISSN, pages 120–121:

     There's no new material on it, just previously issued bits and pieces. That rules out the completist collector. Go figure.

   • 2008 June 21, Matt Selman, “The Completist”, in Time‎^[3]:

     But it’s even harder for me, because… I am a completist. Once I start reading an author’s work, I need to read everything that writer has written. I can’t veer away. I need to check all that author’s books off my mental list. My knowledge of their work must be complete.

   • 2017 November 12, Doree Shafrir, “Meet the People Who Listen to Podcasts at Super-Fast Speeds”, in BuzzFeed News‎^[4]:

     But in conversations with people who listen at speeds higher than 2x, it became clear that many podfasters are above all, completists. That is, they have an almost obsessive need to listen to every episode of a podcast that they decide to commit to.

   • 2018 September 15, Julius Taranto, “On Outgrowing David Foster Wallace”, in Los Angeles Review of Books‎^[5]:

     Then a bunch of commercially cynical books […] designed to capitalize on the wise-man status that his death conferred and (in my case successfully) to separate Wallace completists from their money.

2. A person who champions any philosophy which focuses on the completeness of something.

   A completist philosopher holds that a definite complete body of knowledge exists to be discovered.

Translations

collector who strives to obtain a complete collection

• French: complétiste (fr) m or f
• Italian: completista m or f

person who champions philosophy which focuses on the completeness of something

• Italian: completista m or f

Adjective

completist (comparative more completist, superlative most completist)

1. Which attempts to collect something completely.
   • 1982 Spring, Charlotte Laughlin, “Conan in Paperback”, in Paperback Quarterly, volume 5, number 1, page 21:

     The completist collector of Conan will want not only all the Conan paperbacks, but also those about Conan or using the name Conan to promote sales of other books by Robert E. Howard.

   • 2013, Henry Martin, Keith Waters, “Jazz Since the 1980s”, in Essential Jazz, →ISBN, pages 215–216:

     The company decided to include every scrap of recorded material, no matter how insignificant. Sometime excerpts were only a few seconds long, with the recording cut off by Parker, the recording engineer, or the producer following a false start, technical problem, or other blatant error. No matter—every flub was issued, available for scrutiny. This completist philosophy was subsequently extended to Parker's other two record companies, Dial and Verve, as well as to his live performances, often captured on amateur equipment in informal settings.

   • 2013 November, Roy Shuker, Popular Music Fandom, →ISBN, Record Collecting and Fandom, page 173:

     Many collectors have a strong interest in particular artists or genres of music, often combining these with a general collection, but taking a more completist approach.

Related terms

• completism

See also

• completionist

References

• Jeff Prucher, editor (2007), “completist”, in Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction, Oxford, Oxfordshire, New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 25.
• Jesse Sheidlower, editor (2001–2024), “completist n.”, in Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction.

Etymology 2

Adjective

completist

1. (obsolete) Alternative spelling of completest