sciolist (siolist)

[ smatterer. It is the ingrateful Genius of this Age that, if any Sciolist can find a Hole in an old Author's Coat, he will endeavour to make it much more wide. Howell , Letters, iv. 31. It is of great importance that those whom I love should not think me a precipitate, silly, shallow sciolist in politics, and suppose that every frivolous word that falls from my Macaulay , Trevelyan, pen is a dogma which I mean to advance as indisputable. sciolistic (si-o-lis'tik), a. [ From its apparently greater freedom in skilful hands, blank verse gives more scope to sciolistic theorizing and dogmatism than the rhyming pentameter couplet. Lowell , Among my Books, II. 298.