Example Sentences

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Coke commented upon them sentence by sentence, and even now the merest smatterer in English law must profess some knowledge of Quia emptores and De donis conditionalibus.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 9, Slice 6 "English Language" to "Epsom Salts" by Various

But in geometry and rational arithmetic he is a smatterer, though expert at computation; at the board he is a trained man of business.

From A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II by Smith, David Eugene

Too vast a subject, ma'am," he said, "for a smatterer like me.

From No Name by Collins, Wilkie

In history he was the merest smatterer, though it was his favorite reading, and he was always talking about Sparta, Athens, and Rome.

From Famous Americans of Recent Times by Parton, James

When yet if you consult historians, you'll find no princes more pestilent to the commonwealth than where the empire has fallen to some smatterer in philosophy or one given to letters.

From The Praise of Folly by Wilson, John