Historiaster
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 An inferior historian. archaic, derogatory, rare
"Humbly inscribed to those two celebrated historiasters, Mr. [John] Oldmixon, author of the History of the royal House of Stuart, &c. &c. &c. and Mr. Samuel Chandler, author of the late History of persecution."
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples"Humbly inscribed to those two celebrated historiasters, Mr. [John] Oldmixon, author of the History of the royal House of Stuart, &c. &c. &c. and Mr. Samuel Chandler, author of the late History of persecution."
Etymology
Probably borrowed from New Latin historiaster, from Latin historia (“history”) + -aster (suffix denoting incomplete or partial resemblance, and hence sometimes having a derogatory connotation). Historia is derived from Ancient Greek ῐ̔στορῐ́ᾱ (hĭstorĭ́ā, “systematic observation, inquiry; knowledge or written account of such an inquiry”), from ῐ̔στορέω (hĭstoréō, “to ask, inquire; to examine, observe; to record”) (from ῐ̔́στωρ (hĭ́stōr, “one who knows law and right, judge; wise man; witness”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *weyd- (“to see”)) + -ῐ́ᾱ (-ĭ́ā, suffix forming feminine abstract nouns). Analyzable as history + -aster.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.