THE FIRST WORD

sciolism

PRONUNCIATION:

(SY-uh-liz-uhm) 

MEANING:

noun: Pretentious display of superficial knowledge.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Late Latin sciolus (smatterer), diminutive of Latin scius (knowing), from scire (to know). Ultimately from the Indo-European root skei- (to cut or split), which also gave us schism, ski, shin, science, conscience, nice, scienter, nescient, exscind, and adscititious. Earliest documented use: 1810.

USAGE:

"This consists of some of the dullest sciolism in the history of prose, a standardized academic jargon and rhetoric, the dutiful rehearsal of received theory, and the deliberate misrepresentation of anything challenging or rejecting academic postmodernism."
Michael Donaghy; The Shape of the Dance; Picador; 2009.