Regarding some recent political discourse…
I’ve seen some people using the words “centrist” and “moderate” interchangeably, but I view them very differently.
To me, a centrist is someone who determines the ideal political positions via triangulation. I view this very negatively, both because it has no good ethical or meta-ethical underpinning, and because it is naive, being both easily gamed by extremists pushing on the Overton window and, in fact, adding additional incentives for extremists to be even more extreme, for that reason.
A moderate, but contrast, is to me more what “conservative” (as opposed to “reactionary” was supposed to mean, but has failed to mean in practice) – favoring gradual rather than revolutionary change to avoid major downside risks.
I also think less moderate people incorrectly assume that their exact constellation of issues are inherent in the nature of the universe rather than contingent on the nature of society, and conclude that anyone who doesn’t share all of the most left/right possible positions just hasn’t thought it through enough and is being in consistent. It’s quite possible to hold a moderate mix of views for well thought out reasons, consistent with a philosophical underipinning; it’s just that philosophy is something other than superficial leftism/rightism.
I see “centrist” not as a label of the method of finding policy, but as a label for anyone who has positions near the center, regardless of how they got there.
Because, in practice, that is how the word is used. You will be accused of being a Clueless Triangulator or wishy-washer regardless of whether you ever actually triangulate.