Maoist belongs to the political thinking of Mao Zedong, who led China through the middle of the twentieth century. As an adjective it means ‘of that thinking’: Maoist ideas, a Maoist party, Maoist years. As a noun it means a person who follows that thinking. The body of ideas itself is more often named Maoism, or Mao Zedong Thought; people do still say Maoist thought for the same thing, so the tidy dictionary split is tidier than real use. You meet the word in history and politics, not in everyday chat, and it feels serious and rather formal. Outside textbooks people sometimes stretch it, even unkindly, to mean ‘very far left’ or ‘in love with revolution’, whether or not the person has actually read Mao. In China the picture is messier than the label: later governments kept some of Mao’s line and set some of it aside, while groups far from Beijing have also called themselves Maoist.