# lateralist
## English
### Etymology

From lateral +‎ -ist.

### Adjective

lateralist (comparative more lateralist, superlative most lateralist)
* Characteristic of lateralism; pertaining to the interactions of opposing interests of equal power.
** 1980, The Australian Quarterly - Volumes 52-53, page 365:If 'left-winger' and 'right-winger' are terms of opprobrium moreover, the journalists can help their chosen cause by invoking lateralist terms to characterise, in the guise of simply describing, one of the parties in a dispute. This implies that the other party is 'centrist' or 'moderate' or 'non-extremist.'
** 1989, Allen Lynch, The Soviet Study of International Relations, →ISBN, page 104:A chief criticism levelled against American "lateralist" and "polar" theorists is precisely the accusation that they are attempting to avoid the issue of the development of relations between the two socio-economic systems, i.e., the essentially bipolar politico-strategic structure of postwar international relations.
** 2008, Kathleen A. Bishop, The Canterbury Tales Revisited: 21st Century Interpretations, page 236:Albertano's more lateralist, Aristotelian sympathies are also reflected in his choice of setting, scenario and protagonists.
** 2013, Eva C. Karpinski, Jennifer Henderson, Ian Sowton, Trans/acting Culture, Writing, and Memory, →ISBN:A lateralist and multilateralist exchange of languages and value systems redeems economy from reduction to profit and loss.
** 2014, Martin Parker, George Cheney, Valérie Fournier, The Routledge Companion to Alternative Organization, →ISBN:Within such a dynamic and seemingly boundaryless context for organizing, what looks like an anarchistic and lateralist set of relations, there are both challenges and advantages to social change agents
* Favoring a lateral approach or explanation over one that involves a different direction, such as a vertical one.
** 1915, Journal of the South African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy:...but as far as African bedded deposits are concerned I think that the prospector following either the “ lateralist " or " profundist " advice will waste much time and money unless he is also guided by a study of possible sources of the ore he seeks, and of the probable itenerary of the solutions to which such ore owes its present position.
** 1991, Testudo: The Journal of the British Chelonia Group:Should the scientist be monological or multilogical? Should the scientist be reductionist or holist? Should the scientist be inductivist or deductivist: lateralist or verticalist?

### Noun

lateralist (plural lateralists)
* One who engages in lateral thinking.
** 1971, William Katavolos, Journal of the Industrial Designers Society of America - Volume 4, page 16:The correlator is a lateralist capable of making one to one correspondences between the vertical sciences and the horizontal arts.
** 1997, Gunnar Harding, Bengt Jangfeldt, Pat Strachan, Artes: An International Reader of Literature, Art and Music, →ISBN, page 93:One and one make two, the literalist said. So far they've made five billion, said the lateralist. Or ten if you count all the dead.
** 2001, David Evans, Supervisory Management: Principles and Practice, →ISBN, page 169:Individual creativity has to be striven for, and the lateral thinking approach is to be recommended. To be able to use such a technique, the lateralist has to undergo a significant change in mental attitudes and outlook before practising this art consistently.
* One who favors a lateral approach or explanation over one that involves a different direction.
** 1843, The United Service Magazine - Volume 42, page 500:Harris was not, however, as we have already said, to walk the course, for the lateralists and attractists, took the field against him, and for a while divided the opinions of those interested in the matter. The lateral-explosionists were demolished by Messrs. Faraday and Wheatstone, who distinctly disavowed any knowledge of a side discharge which was not a diversion or division of the primary current, where the conductor was not of sufficient capacity of conduction, and that liabilities to such diversion would decrease in proportion to the goodness of the conductor: but the attactists contemned the whole race of lightning conductors stock-and-fluke, although their efficacy might be considered to have been established beyond all doubt by the experience of eighty years, and the unanimous opinions of the scientific in all countries. .
** 1892, Wallace's Monthly:It can not be on that of numbers, as there will be such an overwhelming majority of diagonalities that the lateralists will be in a '"hopeless minority," hundreds against thousands when the computation is made.
** 1962, John C. Crowell, Displacement Along the San Andreas Fault, California, →ISBN, page 3:Nearly a decade has passed since Hill and Dibblee (1953) suggested that its displacement might be as much as several hundred miles, but California geologists still interpret differently the geologic data and find themselves in two major groups: those who advocate strike slip of many miles (the lateralists) and those who do not (the dip-slippers).
** 1984, Takeshi Uemura, Shinjirō Mizutani, Geological structures, →ISBN, page 40:The reason is that because strata are not unlimited in the horizontal direction and moreover are not horizontal, they may well come up against strata of a different age simply as a result of lateral displacement. The 'lateralists' have frequently pointed this out in relation to the history of the San Andreas fault.
** 1992, B. M. Johri, Kunda B. Ambegaokar, Prem S. Srivastava, Comparative embryology of angiosperms - Volume 1, page 81:The cotyledon and the future stem-tip both develop in lateral-apical position but become respectively terminal and lateral. Juguet re- emphasizes "that the quarrel between "terminalists" and "lateralists" is a futile one"
** 2005, Arnaldo Castellucci, Endodontics - Volume 2, page 631:In this author's opinion, one can state without a doubt that the Endotec is a step forward, since it incontrovertibly proves that the “lateralists” have also realized that by softening the gutta-percha with heat and subjecting the mass thus obtained to pressure (vertical and/or lateral) one obtains better results!
* One who favors lateralism.
** 1982, Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, Henry A. Kissinger, Eugene Victor Rostow, The Transatlantic Crisis:It was at this meeting, after all, that many of us discovered for the first time that we were global unilateralists, global multilateralists, non-global unilateralists or multilateralists, to say nothing of lateralists of various persuasions and intensities.
** 2015, John Joseph Adams, Loosed upon the World: The Saga Anthology of Climate Fiction, →ISBN:Going lateral was another movement that began on the Internet. The lateralists worked out that they could actually live way better by detaching themselves from the economic systems of derivatives, leverage, optionality, and toxic assets. In just months, the lateralists' ranks swelled from thousands to millions to hundreds of millions.