Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Superficial or piecemeal knowledge: "a smattering of everything, and a knowledge of nothing” ( Charles Dickens).
- n. A small, scattered amount or number: a smattering of raindrops.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A slight or superficial knowledge: as, to have a smattering of Latin or Greek.
Wiktionary
- n. A superficial or shallow knowledge of a subject.
- n. A small number or amount of something.
- v. present participle of smatter.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A slight, superficial knowledge of something; sciolism.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a small number or amount
- n. a slight or superficial understanding of a subject
Examples
“A smattering," is how Barry described the warm reception.”
USATODAY.com - Spurs' Barry finds his range in the nick of time
“Gayatri proved to be an able companion through the years -- even picking up Tamil (Prahalad could speak a smattering of Gujarati).”
“I used to be semi-fluent in Japanese and I could speak a smattering of Mandarin enough to order in a restaurant and get on and off the bus in the right spots.”
“As an international businessman, I speak a smattering of languages, including Arabic.”
“Indians -- who could speak a smattering of English -- that he might be bound and remain, or accompany them to see the Big Knife tortured.”
“The majority of them, however, were content with what I have just called a smattering of education.”
“Like many Arabs, he can speak a smattering, and a very fair one, of three or four languages, but he can't write a line in any one of them.”
“But the absence of the smattering is a much more dangerous and fatal thing if the man wishes to do business with the Argentine and the Transvaal, or to enter into practical relations of any sort with anybody outside his own parish.”
“Thanks to my Nyonya maternal grandmother, I speak a smattering of Malay.”
“They have learnt from long experience that the Brits are not always natural linguists, and so to speak a smattering of our language is a shrewd move on their part.”
Telegraph.co.uk: news business sport the Daily Telegraph newspaper Sunday Telegraph
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘smattering’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
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Imprecise Units of Measurement
A list of terms for units of measurement that are less than exact, such as dessert-spoonful.
two shakes, dessert-spoonful, a pinch, a bit, some, smidge, smidgin, dollop, drop, fleck, smack, sprinkling and 187 more...
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A Little Bit of This, A Little Bit of...
amalgam, medley, conglomerate, pastiche, mishmash, motley, miscellaneous, various, sundry, congeries, potpourri, omnifarious and 5 more...
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Bitty Bites
Lyricism and Lollipops, naysayers forbidden... thanks sucker:)
ephermal, acausal, intricate, seldom, braggart, vagabond, naysayer, psychocunt, iconoclastic, dibbler, smattering, precursor and 4 more...
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the first list
an immense, grandiloquent list that loads like a thousand years sentence in stone. new words are in the other lists.
ridiculous, brummagem, predicament, sanctimonious, vapid, eschew, admonish, auspicious, capitulation, enumerate, lachrymose, tenet and 1648 more...
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My Good Words
robust, seeth, uncanny, earnest, palpate, belabor, minx, plaintive, endemic, contingent, henceforth, perfunctory and 92 more...
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Words
My list of words.
veritable, facetious, nadir, quixotic, apropos, acquiesce, ostensible, insipid, egregious, inveterate, coax, adroit and 409 more...
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Words I Should Use More Often
Words that I'll use to sound erudite.
fungible, aggrandizement, tete-a-tete, sententious, serendipitous, fortuitous, lugubrious, declivity, propitiatory, volubility, august, tenebrous and 214 more...
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Personal Vocabulary List
All my favourite words that I come across!
veritable, incongruence, rigamorole, letcherous, revolting, repulsive, reputrid, rapatious, forays, guise, placate, paradigm and 1162 more...
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Words I have to learn
exasperate, felony, weld, fraud, worksheet, ransom, rehearse, preliminary, offshore, parole, infamous, sieve and 436 more...
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poonis's Words
windswept, brouhaha, nocuous, sanguine, dissonance, diatribe, homunculus, rancor, stupor, resplendent, anecdote, splay and 125 more...
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spread out, spacious words of spe
words pertaining to the root spe- (hope) with some allegorical liberties.
paten, pan, pass, patent, petal, expand, repand, passacaglia, passe, paseo, paella, spawn and 150 more...
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Words I'd Like to Use Someday
thundersnow, phantasmagoria, mercurial, chimerical, taciturn, paraclete, lapis lazuli, flay, guttersnipe, wonky, misanthrope, kestrel and 583 more...
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simple & useful9
heartrendingly, rancorous, ferocity, earful, dispiriting, dandification, ascribing, monotonic, smattering, yesteryear, sword of damocles, blubbering and 104 more...
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nominative case collection
wine stopper, pyre, roster, hamper, moleskin, elastic, pinnacle, facsimile, nook, plonk, contortionist, dismay and 342 more...
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newGRE
mostly from magoosh
imbue, verge on, nonchalant, deliberate, timorous, futile, provisional, dissect, checked, tinged, alluring, visionary and 1046 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for smattering.
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