"Sciolism" comes from the Late Latin "sciolus," which means "smatterer" (or
"one who speaks with spotty or superficial knowledge"). "Sciolus" comes from
the diminutive of the Latin "scius," meaning "knowing," which itself comes
from the verb "scire," meaning "to know." Of course, if you know something
about Latin roots, you know that "scire" is the source of many other English
words, including "science," "prescience" ("foreknowledge"), "nescience"
("lack of knowledge"), and "conscience."
...just thought I'd paste the definition of the day of one of those daily vocabulary emails I receive since it was a timely definition--and, besdies, sjm used the word.
And sciolism does seem to fit the bill of what we're talking about here. Now, is the noun form, sciolus, still used today? I could look it up, but I'm going offline and to bed. I'll let somebody else answer the question...
Beat regards,
WordWeary
