ultracrepidarian

Meanings

1. Giving or offering opinions on something beyond one's knowledge or expertise.

1. One who gives or offers opinions on something beyond one's knowledge (a person passing judgment beyond their 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.