Criticaster

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A petty or charlatan critic.

    "[H]e rather overdoes it, and so puzzles his enemies in the play, and certain German criticasters and English mad doctors in the closet, and does not puzzle his bosom friend in the play one bit, nor the pit for whom he was created."

Example

More examples

"[H]e rather overdoes it, and so puzzles his enemies in the play, and certain German criticasters and English mad doctors in the closet, and does not puzzle his bosom friend in the play one bit, nor the pit for whom he was created."

Etymology

From critic + -aster.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.