sciolist

Estimated CEFR level: C2 — Proficiency

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

noun an amateur who engages in an activity without serious intentions and who pretends to have knowledge

From Late Latin sciolus + -ist. First attested at the beginning of the 17th century.

It is a topic on which only sciolists would venture to dogmatize. — William Pitt and national revival, J. Holland (John Holland) Rose
And such readers will become in all probability more numerous, in proportion as a still greater diffusion of literature shall produce an increase of sciolists, and sciolism bring with it petulance and presumption. — Biographia Literaria, Samuel Taylor Coleridge
For the world cries your faith is now But a dead time's exploded dream; My melancholy, sciolists say, Is a pass'd mode, an outworn theme-- As if the world had ever had A faith, or sciolists been sad! — Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold, Matthew Arnold

dabbler, dilettante

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