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There was the following sentence in New York Times (May 26) article titled, “No real hurry to tell the joke -Bob Newhart, Master of the one-sided conversation”

Bob Newhart has always been a gentle minimalist, which may be why he does not get anywhere near the critical respect of fellow founding fathers of modern stand-up, like Bill Cosby or Lenny Bruce. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/27/arts/television/bob-newhart-master-of-the-one-sided-conversation.html?src=dayp

Is there one word antonym to ‘minimalist’? If not, what is the shortest antonym to ‘minimalist’?

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  • Maximalist is the obvious antonym, but the spell-checker seems to disagree.
    – Anonym
    Commented May 27, 2014 at 0:06
  • The closest direct antonym I can think of for this usage would be "traditionalist", but that just gets us back to the default case. It sounds like you want a word for someone whose work is more ornate than average. The adjective "rococo" can be idiomatically used to describe that highly-elaborated work, but I don't know of any general term for people who adopt that as a style.
    – keshlam
    Commented May 27, 2014 at 0:16
  • @Anonym. 'Maximalist' occurred to my mind at first, but I couldn't find it in online dictionaries. I thought I have to look for 'ambitious, avaricious, self-assertive" direction, forgeting about 'xxx-list' variety.
    – Yoichi Oishi
    Commented May 27, 2014 at 1:03

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Sticking to the context you’ve given, we might say that radically non-minimalist comedians have an in-your-face or over-the-top style. This would probably apply to Lenny Bruce, but not to Bill Cosby. I’m sure there is a more succinct way to express this, however.

A more general antonym is baroque (but not for comedians.)

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  • "Flamboyant" is another.
    – Nsw
    Commented May 27, 2014 at 12:15
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One antonym of minimalist is profligate.

As a noun, profligate means "a wildly extravagant or self-indulgent person". The word profligate is also an adjective (similar to minimalist), meaning "wildly extravagant". An alternate adjective is prodigal.

Incidentally, the word maximalist is not actually an antonym of minimalist; on the contrary, it is political jargon meaning "one who advocates immediate and direct action to secure the whole of a program or set of goals".

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    Sorry but maximalist is the exact antonym to minimalist. We don't even need to waste time on definitions. Maximalism - as its name suggests - was invented as a response (and in opposition) to Minimalism so is automatically its antonym.
    – user24964
    Commented May 27, 2014 at 0:29
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    @TheMathemagician I must respectfully disagree; there are many pseudo-antonyms which appear opposite, but actually are not. For instance, simulate and dissimulate, bar and debar, and flammable and inflammable are certainly not antonyms, despite their appearance.
    – Ted Broda
    Commented May 27, 2014 at 0:34
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    @TheMathemagician Moreover, this source (bit.ly/1kFSwNG) provides a detailed etymology of maximalist; it is Russian in origin, and had a distinct political meaning.
    – Ted Broda
    Commented May 27, 2014 at 0:41
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    Your thought-process appears to be that because a Russian Marxist splinter group called themselves "maximalists" that is now the sole definition of the word in English. Unless Bob Newhart was a secret Marxist-Leninist, sneaking in dialectical materialism into his routines, I think my usage of minimalism/maximalism in the artistic sense is the correct one.
    – user24964
    Commented May 27, 2014 at 0:50
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    Maximalist - is having an all-out attitude towards solving problems. May not be the opposite of minimalism, because you could still effect total maximal change using minimal resources.
    – Blessed Geek
    Commented May 27, 2014 at 2:43

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