ultracrepidarian

Definition

Giving opinions on something beyond their knowledge or expertise.

Etymology

Attributed to English essayist and writer William Hazlitt, who used it in a letter to William Gifford (see quotation below); from ultra- (“beyond”) + Latin crepida (“a particular style of Greek sandal”) + -arian, evidently formed directly on the Latin proverb ne ultra/supra crepidam ("not beyond the crepida"). The reference is to a Greek story concerning the painter Apelles, who supposedly placed new works on public display and hid behind them to hear and act upon people's reactions. In Book 35 of his Natural History, Pliny the Elder records that a shoemaker noted that one figure had the wrong number of straps on his crepida, a kind of elaborate sandal. Delighted to see it fixed the next day, he supposedly began to critique the form of the leg, so annoying Apelles that the painter came out to tell him to mind his own business: that a shoemaker should restrict his commentary to the shoes.

Example Sentences

• "[…]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."
• "[Inspector Queen] was the only person in New York who might be called, without intent to malign, an Ultracrepidarian critic. It was of the very nature of his job to find fault with small and insignificant details."
• "Suitably daunted by ultracrepidarian angst, I record here some tentative readings in rhetoric's expanded domain and venture a few preliminary observations on their relation to the electronic word."