sciolism

Estimated CEFR level: C2 — Proficiency

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

  1. noun pretentious superficiality of knowledge

Etymology

From Late Latin sciolus (“sciolist”) + English -ism (suffix forming the names of tendencies of action, behaviour, condition, opinion, or state belonging to classes or groups of persons), based on sciolist. Sciolus is a diminutive of Latin scius (“cognizant, knowing”) + -olus (variant of -ulus (suffix forming diminutives)); while scius is either from sciō (“to be able to; to have practical knowledge, know (how to do something); to understand”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *skey- (“to dissect; to split”)), or is a back-formation from nescius (“ignorant, unaware; unknowing”) (from nesciō (“to be ignorant, not know, not understand; to be unable”), from ne- (prefix meaning ‘not’) + sciō).

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