Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A pretender to philosophical knowledge; an incompetent philosopher.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun obsolete A pretender to philosophy.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun a pretender to philosophy; a petty or charlatan
philosopher .
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Latin philosophaster, from philosophus ("philosopher"), and -aster ("little', 'partial'")
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Examples
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Shylock chimes with the jewbaiting that followed the hanging and quartering of the queen's leech Lopez, his jew's heart being plucked forth while the sheeny was yet alive: _Hamlet_ and _Macbeth_ with the coming to the throne of a Scotch philosophaster with a turn for witchroasting.
Ulysses James Joyce 1911
strev commented on the word philosophaster
or philosfaster: to break from philosophy
November 7, 2009