_Poetaster_ (Vol. iv., p. 59.).--In reply to A BORDERER, I do not think
_poetaster_ to be a genuine Latin word, though where first used I do not
know. The French equivalent is _poetereau_; the Italian _poeterio_; both
formed according to the analogies of the respective languages.
_Poetaster_ seems to me to be formed upon the model of _oleaster_,
_pinaster_, &c., as though to indicate that the person to whom the name
is applied is as unlike a true poet as the wild olive to the true olive,
or the wild pine to the true pine. What then is the derivation of
_aster_ as a termination? Some punster will say, respecting _oleaster_,
that it is _olea sterilis_. Is it not [Greek: agrios]? or is it rather a
form cognate to the Greek termination [Greek: -azo], which generally
means the performance of some energy, or the exhibiting of some state,
implied in the substantive; as though the wild olive affected the
characteristics and condition of the genuine olive? I am fully aware of
many difficulties in the admission of these derivations. I would suggest
another. Does _aster_ signify that which affects or approaches the
characteristics of the substantive to which it is added, as the
terminations _-estis_ or _-estris_, whereby adjectives are formed; as
_agrestis_, _sylvestris_, _campestris_, at the same time that the forms
are allied, _-aster_, _-estris_, _-estis_?