Definition of "conversationist"

Witty, learned, imaginative, she was conceded to be the best conversationist in any circle.

1914, Sarah Knowles Bolton, Lives of Girls Who Became Famous‎

BROWN, SAMUEL, M.D., chemist, born in Haddington, grandson of John Brown of Haddington, whose life was devoted, with the zeal of a mediaeval alchemist, to a reconstruction of the science of atomics, which he did not live to see realised: a man of genius, a brilliant conversationist and an associate of the most intellectual men of his time, among the number De Quincey, Carlyle, and Emerson; wrote "Lay Sermons on the Theory of Christianity," "Lectures on the Atomic Theory," and two volumes of "Essays, Scientific and Literary" (1817-1856).

1907, Edited by Rev. James Wood, The Nuttall Encyclopaedia‎

[A] He was expert at fence, had some skill in drawing, and was a ready and eloquent conversationist and declaimer.

1850, Various, International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1,‎