Another word for smattering

He spoke a smattering of words she didn't understand.

At odd hours of lessons she picked up a smattering of Latin, music and natural science, but most days were holidays and spent in country rambles and games with village children.

The kings choice, however, fell on Hajji Mirza Aghasi, a native of Erivan, who in former years, as tutor to the Sons of Abbas Mirza, had gained a certain reputation for learning and a smattering of the occult sciences, but whose qualifications for statesmanship were craftiness and suspicion.

Here congregated hundreds of the younger szlachta, fresh from their school benches, whence they brought nothing but a smattering of Latin and a determination to make their way by absolute subservience to their "elder brethren," the pans.

His father, who was a wealthy man and possessed at any rate a smattering of Greek, Latin and French, was thought to have demeaned himself by marrying the daughter of an Andover tradesman, who afterwards retired to a country house near Reading, where young Jeremy spent many happy days.