philosophaster
Jan. 7th, 2015 08:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
prettygoodwordphilosophaster (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.
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.
