poetaster
nounUK /pəʊɪtæstə(ɹ)/
Etymology Learned borrowing from New Latin poētaster. By surface analysis, poet + -aster.
1
An unskilled poet.
- Where the personal feelings were not engaged, it was also an agreeable pastime to follow his destructive feats; see him annihilate a poetaster, or insinuate away the pretensions of a book-wright.1853, Henry Theodore Tuckerman, “Mental Portraits; Or, Studies of Character”, in The Reviewer: Lord Jeffrey, page 219:
- Innumerable poetasters of the early eighteenth century enjoyed fame in their day and some possessed talent; but the obscure and trivial style of the age from which they could not free themselves deprived them of any chance of enduring fame.1913, Elijah Clarence Hills, S. Griswold Morley, editors, Modern Spanish Lyrics:
- Derived terms
- poetasterism, poetastery, poetastric, poetastrical
- Related terms
- criticaster, logicaster, mathematicaster, philosophaster, poetastress, politicaster