[a. L. lit(t)erātor (1) a teacher of ABC, (2) a grammarian, critic, (3) a smatterer, a sciolist; f. littera letter. Cf. F. littérateur.]
† 1. A pretender to learning, a sciolist. Obs.
1635. A. Stafford, Fem. Glory, Apol. (1869), p. xcv. Theise Puritanicall Christians will admit of any Church-Mountebanke, any Literator, soe hee can shew him selfe seditious enough.
a. 1641. Bp. Mountagu, Acts & Mon. (1642), 457. Gregory Martin, a Literator, who brawles against us for using sometime the word Congregation for the Church.
2. A literary man; = LITTÉRATEUR.
1791. Burke, Lett. to Member Nat. Assembly, Wks. VI. 36. [French] preceptors … a set of pert petulant literators, to whom … they assign the brilliant part of men of wit and pleasure.
1812. Brenan’s Milesian Mag., July, 87. A history of Ireland … is about to be published by that illustrious literator Jack Squintum [Jn. Lawless: pub. 1814].
1817. Ticknor, Lett. & Jrnls. (1876), I. 128. He … asked me with the eagerness of a hardened literator, whether [etc.].
1829. Landor, Imag. Conv., Wks. 1853, I. 385/1. They are lawyers, literators, metaphysicians.
1831. Blackw. Mag., XXIX. 902. Hume, even as a litterator, was every way superior to the bishop.
1849. Thirlwall, Lett. (1881), 196. On the metaphysicians and literators I do not suppose that it would produce the slightest impression.
1872. Swinburne, Under Microscope, 58. The men really and naturally dear to them [English reviewers] are the literators of Boston.
1878. Browning, Poets Croisic, lxxxi. Literators trudging up to knock At Fame’s exalted temple-door.
1890. Athenæum, 11 Jan., 44/2. No array of circumstances can transmute the born ‘literator’ into a mere man of action.
1900. Pall Mall Gaz., 5 Dec. Mr. Gibb is no mere Orientalist; he is also preeminently a literator.
3. † a. A bibliographer (obs.). b. One who concerns himself with verbal and textual criticism. rare.
1727–51. Chambers, Cycl., s.v. Book, The history of a book is either of its contents … or of its appendages and accidents, which is the more immediate province of those called literators, and bibliothecarians.
1826. De Quincey, Lessing’s Laocoon, in Blackw. Mag., XX. 733/2. It is impossible from the slight notices of this drama [the Laocoon of Sophocles] in the old literators, to come to any conclusion about the way in which it was treated. Ibid. (1858), R. Bentley, Wks. VII. 102. The philological researches of the Greek and Latin literator.
4. nonce-use. (See quot.)
1785. Trusler, Mod. Times, III. (ed. 3), 129. Lord W. wished to appoint me his literator, which office was to cull out the pith of every new publication, and retail it to him at breakfast, for he was too indolent to read himself.
