smatterer

• “But the worst of it is that all efforts in this direction have generally ended in producing a "smatterer," whose theories are baffled by constant disappointment, and whose worldly prosperity is lessened by his mistaken experiments.”

  Village Improvements and Farm Villages

• “Nor was his the case of the mere literary smatterer, content if he but learn the names of things.”

  Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin

• “At this explanation she shook her head, and observed that no smatterer could read as I had done.”

  The Adventures of Roderick Random

• “By the first, many a smatterer acquires the reputation of a man of quick parts; by the other, many a dunderpate, like the owl, the stupidest of birds, comes to be considered the very type of wisdom.”

  Washington Irving

• “He turned out in the end to be a mere smatterer, who did but skim over the surface of things, pretending to know every thing, but knowing nothing thoroughly.”

  The Alhambra

• “Rabban Simeon, who perished in the siege of the city; and he spake these things when some of the learnedest Rabbins were by: and yet that they understood not these words, which even a smatterer in the oriental tongues would very easily understand!”

  From the Talmud and Hebraica

• “Any knowledge of their theory short of actual accuracy is nearly useless; perhaps worse than useless, because, by beguiling the unhappy smatterer into ambitious attempts, it cheats him of the little power he may have of rendering himself intelligible.”

  Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 61, No. 376, February, 1847

• “By the first many a smatterer acquires the reputation of a man of quick parts; by the other many a dunderpate, like the owl, the stupidest of birds, comes to be considered the very type of wisdom.”

  Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8

• “The general appearance of the poet had, from the first moment, interested me in his misfortunes; and being a smatterer in learning myself, my vanity, perhaps, was flattered with the idea of becoming the protector of a man of letters in distress.”

  The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan

• “[Page 10] take, or more probably an insertion by a later smatterer of literary knowledge who inherited the manuscript.”

  Diaries of Court Ladies of Old Japan

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