historiaster

plural historiasters

1. archaicderogatoryrareAn inferior historian.

   We next meet our historian—or historiaster, if the name might be coined to describe him—on one of the comparatively rare occasions where he is dealing mostly with undisputed facts.

   T[homas] Dunbar Ingram (1887), A History of the Legislative Union of Great Britain and Ireland, London: Macmillan and Co., →OCLC

   3 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.

   1736, [Zachary Grey], “[Title page]”, in English Presbyterian Eloquence, &c. In a Collection of Remarkable Flowers of Rhetorick. […], London: […] J[ames] Roberts, →OCLC; quoted in Samuel Halkett; John Laing, compilers, edited by [Catherine Laing], A Dictionary of the Anonymous and Pseudonymous Literature of Great Britain. […], volume I, Edinburgh: William Paterson, 1882, →OCLC, title page, column 761

   A human sacrifice is here clearly indicated. This mysterious cavern, with its diabolical associations, […] leave an impression which the efforts of those historiasters who endeavor to whitewash Tiberius cannot weaken with all their arguments.

   1868 June, [Bayard Taylor], “A Week on Capri”, in The Atlantic Monthly. A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics, volume XXL, number CXXVIII, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, […], →OCLC, page 747, column 1

   Speaking of a series of trials for treason held at Antioch, of which he [Ammianus Marcellinus] does not recollect all the grim details, he excuses himself with the words: "As the full particulars of what was done have escaped my memory, I shall describe succinctly what I can recall to mind." "But this is shocking," some scientific historiaster of our own day will exclaim. "There must have been an official record of the trial; he should have consulted that." The answer is, of course, that under that iron despotism Ammianus had as much chance of inspecting official documents of state trials as a German scholar in the last decade would have had of perusing the secret archives of the Gestapo.

   1947, M[ax] L[udwig] W[olfram] Laistner, “Ammianus Marcellinus”, in The Greater Roman Historians (Sather Classical Lectures; 21), Berkeley; Los Angeles, Calif.: University of California Press, →OCLC, page 153

   Synonyms: historicaster