spoil-paper

English

Etymology

From spoil +‎ paper. Possibly a calque of French guaste-papier.

Noun

spoil-paper (plural spoil-papers)

1. (obsolete) An unskilled writer.
   • 1874 [1833], “Prologue [The Second Ten]”, in Droll Stories‎^[1], translation of Les Cent Contes drolatiques by Honoré de Balzac, page 173:

     Certain persons have reproached the Author for knowing no more about the language of the olden times than hares do of telling stories. Formerly these people would have been vilified, called cannibals, churls, and sycophants, and Gomorrah would have been hinted at as their natal place. But the Author consents to spare them the flowery epithets of ancient criticism; he contents himself with wishing not to be in their skin, for he would be disgusted with himself, and esteem himself the vilest of scribblers thus to calumniate a poor little book which is not in the style of any spoil-paper of these times.

Synonyms

• blotter, feather-driver, hack, paper-blurrer, penster, squitter-pulp