Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A writer of insignificant, meretricious, or shoddy poetry.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A petty poet: a feeble rimester, or a writer of indifferent verses.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun An inferior rhymer, or writer of verses; a dabbler in poetic art.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun An unskilled poet.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[New Latin poētaster : Latin poēta, poet; see poet + Latin -aster, pejorative suff.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Borrowed from the New Latin poētaster. poet +‎ -aster

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word poetaster.

Examples

  • The Norwegians still speak of him as himmelstraevende sublim ( "sublime in his heavenly aspiration"); the Danes will have it that he was an hysterical poetaster.

    Henrik Ibsen 2008

  • I'm also pleased to see that they didn't include a poem by that poetaster Barack Obama, given that Moi, too, am running for President.

    MY POEM IS BETTER THAN YOURS 2008

  • These two volumes belonged to clergyman and poetaster John Lea Simcox, who died in July 1840 at the age of 26; they were taken as a memorial by a friend, Laura Price, from Birmingham. eBay

    The Little Professor: 2008

  • The Norwegians still speak of him as himmelstraevende sublim ( "sublime in his heavenly aspiration"); the Danes will have it that he was an hysterical poetaster.

    Henrik Ibsen 2008

  • I'm also pleased to see that they didn't include a poem by that poetaster Barack Obama, given that Moi, too, am running for President.

    Archive 2008-10-01 2008

  • These two volumes belonged to clergyman and poetaster John Lea Simcox, who died in July 1840 at the age of 26; they were taken as a memorial by a friend, Laura Price, from Birmingham. eBay

    This Week's Acquisitions 2008

  • Sir Lewis Morris was a voluminous poetaster with a common mind.

    Oscar Wilde, His Life and Confessions 2007

  • A tweedy poetaster who spent his time spinning out parables and Japanese koans…or a bland Jesus who simply told people to look at lilies in the fields — such a Jesus would threaten no one, just as the university professors who create him the Jesus Seminar and their ilk threaten no one.

    Archive 2007-09-09 de Brantigny........................ 2007

  • A tweedy poetaster who spent his time spinning out parables and Japanese koans…or a bland Jesus who simply told people to look at lilies in the fields — such a Jesus would threaten no one, just as the university professors who create him the Jesus Seminar and their ilk threaten no one.

    Jesus and Mohammad, Version 2.0 de Brantigny........................ 2007

  • Jovianus Pontanus makes an old fool rhyme, and turn poetaster to please his mistress.

    Anatomy of Melancholy 2007

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • Since a poe might be a now-dead writer, a port of embarkation or a ghost in the Legand of Zelda games, I should imagine this might be an unpopular job...

    (Yes, I know ;-) — but it might have been.)

    December 1, 2007

  • That's close to what I always think every time I see this word. Only I think "poet" rather than "Poe," despite the fact that there is no double T. Blecch.

    December 2, 2007

  • Is there also such a thing as a prosaster?

    July 11, 2015

  • I prayed to my muse and I asked her

    A word for a prose poetaster.

    She told me directly,

    "To fail so abjectly

    Is classed as a simple disaster."

    July 12, 2015