smatterer

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

But when a young smatterer uses them to advertise his calling acquaintance with a language, he is but proclaiming his own lack of good taste.

From English: Composition and Literature by Webster, W. F. (William Franklin)

The veriest smatterer in political economy cannot but perceive the ruinous tendency of such a measure.

From Thoughts on African Colonization by Garrison, William Lloyd

Coke commented upon them sentence by sentence, and even now the merest smatterer in English law must profess some knowledge of Quia emptores and De donis conditionalibus.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 9, Slice 6 "English Language" to "Epsom Salts" by Various

Walpole described 'Mr. Fenn of East Dereham in Norfolk' as 'a smatterer in antiquity, but a very good sort of man.'

From George Borrow and His Circle Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of Borrow And His Friends by Shorter, Clement King

This law, abounding with contradictions which every smatterer in political philosophy can detect, did what a law framed by the utmost skill of the greatest masters of political philosophy might have failed to do.

From The History of England, from the Accession of James II — Volume 3 by Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron