smattering

smattering
    n 1: a small number or amount; "only a handful of responses were
         received" [syn: {handful}, {smattering}]
    2: a slight or superficial understanding of a subject
    

Smattering \Smat"ter*ing\, n.
   A slight, superficial knowledge of something; sciolism.
   [1913 Webster]

         I had a great desire, not able to attain to a
         superficial skill in any, to have some smattering in
         all.                                     --Burton.
   [1913 Webster]
    

72 Moby Thesaurus words for "smattering":
      a little learning, amateurism, cast, coquetry, dabbling, dalliance,
      dallying, dash, dilettantism, dilettantship, few, fiddling,
      flirtation, fooling, fooling around, gleam, glimmering, glimpse,
      half-learning, handful, hint, idea, idling, imperfect knowledge,
      intimation, jerking off, kidding around, lick, loitering, look,
      messing around, monkeying, monkeying around, piddling, playing,
      playing around, pottering, puttering, scattering, scintilla,
      sciolism, semi-learning, shade, shadow, shallowness, sip,
      slight knowledge, smack, smatter, smattering of ignorance,
      smattering of knowledge, smell, soupcon, spark, spatter,
      spattering, sprinkling, suggestion, sup, superficiality,
      surface-scratching, suspicion, taste, thought, tincture, tinge,
      tinkering, touch, toying, trace, trifling, vague notion