vagarian

English

Etymology

vagary +‎ -ian

Noun

vagarian (plural vagarians)

1. One with ridiculous or whimsical ideas; a crackpot.
   • 1858, Alexander Campbell, Charles Louis Loos, The Millennial Harbinger, page 335:

     Why, it was but yesterday that the mariner's compass was discovered, that printing was shown to be practicable, that steam power was laughed at as an absurdity, and the electric telegraph ridiculed as the hobby of a vagarian's brain.

   • 1907, The Methodist Review Quarterly - Volume 56, page 715:

     It has produced superstitious enthusiasts, harebrained vagarians, who have brought the most sacred things into contempt.

   • 1928, Arvid Reuterdahl, The God of science, page 220:

     But charlatans and vagarians never cease to appropriate scientific terms for their pseudologies.

   • 1936, Charles Joseph Finger, Valiant Vagabonds, page 60:

     There were other vagarians, writers of imaginary voyages who sought to impose on a public eager for a new sensation, and still they come with books which are taken seriously by the unthinking.

   • 1980, William Dean Howells, George Warren Arms, Selected letters - Volume 4; Volume 19, page 190:

     I suppose that the obvious facts are always giving us vagarians the slip, like our old family cow, unless we follow them up sharply through flood or fire.

See also

• vagarist

Anagrams

• Agravain