Jan. 7th, 2015

prettygoodword: text: words are sexy (words are sexy)
philosophaster (fi-los-uh-FAS-ter, fi-LOS-uh-fas-ter) - n., a pretender at philosophy, a petty or charlatan philosopher.


Coined in Latin by Robert Burton (as the title of a 1615 university play) from philosophy + -aster, a suffix indicating incomplete resemblance, used on the model of other terms such as poetaster (a bad poet), criticaster (a petty critic), grammaticaster (a pedantic, inferior grammarian).

---L.

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