-aster, -astering, -asterism, -astery, -astress, -astry

1. An incompetent or inferior critic.
2. A contemptible or vicious critic.
3. A petty or inferior critic.

A petty or contemptible heretic.

An inferior or low quality person who misrepresents past events: "Any historian who says that the Romans never existed is a historiaster."

Someone who has but a smattering of Latin while pretending to be qualified in the subject.

Someone whose thought processes are less valid than he or she thinks: After his speech, Steve was called a petty, incompetent logicaster by many who were in the audience.

1. A minor, petty, or inferior mathematician.
2. Someone pretending to know more about mathematics than is actually true.

A medical quack or someone who dispenses false medical advice or treatment; a charlatan.

A female medicaster; a pretender to medical skill; a quack, a charlatan.

Soldiers who are responsible for law and order in the armed forces: "Most military organizations have military policemen and military policewomen, who function to make sure that military rules are enforced on their bases."

1. A musician of mediocre capacity.
2. An incompetent or inferior musician.

A mean or sorry parasite.

A petty or inferior philologist: A philologaster can also be described as an incompetent philologist, or one who dabbles in philology, or even one who blunders in philology.

A shallow philosophical dabbler or poseur; pseudothinker: Sam was a philophaster who assumed an attitude, character, and manner to impress his acquaintances.

A philophaster can also be described as an amateur or superficial and incompetent philosopher.

A person who pretends to know more about something than he or she actually knows as a way of impressing or manipulating others: A philosophaster usually claims to have extensive learning about a subject, but that individual actually has only a superficial understanding of the topic.

Philosophaster is a Latin satirical comedy by Robert Burton, so since the play is about someone who pretends to be a philosopher. The term itself has been used in more recent times to refer to a pretender who supposedly has knowledge about philosophy. <

Referring to a person who acts like a philosopher: Martin wanted to impress his peers by commenting on theories by certain philosophers, but he was really only a philosophastering pretender.