Wednesday's Random Slang-o-rama: Ultracrepidarian

 Ultracrepidarian is a "lost word" that I'd be tempted to fling about on occasion. The Little Book of Lost Words by Joe Gillard defines it as "a person with opinions on subjects beyond their knowledge" and dates it from the 19th century.

Let's see if we can narrow down the first appearance of this seven-syllable obscurity.

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According to Word Histories, ultracrepidarian can also be an adjective, in which case it's defined as "expressing opinions on matters outside the scope of one’s knowledge or expertise" (which certainly makes sense). The Word Histories post gives a detailed rundown on the word's origins and first appearance:

...This word was specifically invented to qualify the English poet and critic William Gifford (1756-1826)... The son of a glazier, Gifford served an apprenticeship to a shoemaker before... attending Exeter College, Oxford; he was, from 1809 to 1824, the first editor of The Quarterly Review. 

With reference to the fact that William Gifford had been a shoemaker’s apprentice, ultracrepidarian alludes to the remark "ne supra crepidam sutor iudicaret", "the cobbler should not judge beyond his shoe"**, attributed to the painter Apelles in response to criticism from a shoemaker, in Naturalis Historia (The Natural History – 77), a vast encyclopaedia of the natural and human worlds by the Roman statesman and scholar Pliny the Elder (23-79). This anecdote is the origin of the proverb let the cobbler stick to his last. (The word ultracrepidarian is from Latin ultra, meaning beyond, and crĕpĭda (from Greek κρηπίς [= krēpís]), denoting the sole which served the Greeks, and the Romans who adopted Grecian habits, as a shoe, a sandal.) 

The word ultracrepidarian was first used as an adjective qualifying the noun "critic" by the English writer and painter William Hazlitt (1778-1830) in A Letter to William Gifford, Esq. (London, 1819):  

...Your overweening self-complacency is never easy but in the expression of your contempt for others; like a conceited mechanic in a village ale-house, you would set down every one who differs from you as an ignorant blockhead; and very fairly infer that any one who is beneath yourself must be nothing. You have been well called an Ultra-Crepidarian critic. 

In 1823, James Henry Leigh Hunt (1784-1859), English poet, journalist and critic, published Ultra-Crepidarius, a satirical poem on William Gifford.

Whoa! Sounds like William Gifford pissed off some highly literate people in his day. According to his bio in Wikipedia, that indeed appears to be the case. 

So, go ahead, and fling that word around. There are plenty of ultracrepidarians in today's world as well. (If the shoe fits...)

"A pair of shoes" by Vincent van Gogh (1887)
The Baltimore Museum of Art, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27368228

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** If you want to know more about this phrase, click here (Wikipedia is your friend).