smatterer


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smat·ter

 (smăt′ər)
v. smat·tered, smat·ter·ing, smat·ters
v.tr.
1. To speak (a language) without fluency: smatters Russian.
2. To study or approach superficially; dabble in.
v.intr.
To prattle: smattered on about her vacation.
n.
A smattering.
[Middle English smateren, to make dirty, speak foolishly, chatter.]
smat′ter·er n.
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

smatterer

noun
One lacking professional skill and ease in a particular pursuit:
amateur, dabbler, dilettante, nonprofessional, uninitiate.
The American Heritage® Roget's Thesaurus. Copyright © 2013, 2014 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
Translations

smatterer

n → Stümperer m (pej), → Stümperin f (pej)
Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007
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References in classic literature ?
"Too vast a subject, ma'am," he said, "for a smatterer like me.
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This, he considered, was the only basis of solid instruction; all other means of education were mere charlatanism, and could produce nothing better than smatterers. Fixed on this firm basis, a man might observe the display of various or special knowledge made by irregularly educated people with a pitying smile; all that sort of thing was very well, but it was impossible these people could form sound opinions.
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the merest smatterer in politics would answer, representative institutions.
Metropole, colony, and imperial citizenship in the Russian Empire
Even though Coryate describes himself as "only a superficiall smatterer in learning" and is presented as such by the panegyrists who furnished parodic verses for the Crudities, Taylor insists upon a clear contrast between Coryate's pretenses and his own more humble position.
Fashioning familiar space in the domestic travel writing of John Taylor the Water-Poet

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