Deipnosophist

Deipnosophist is defined as "A master of the art of dining: taken from the title of the Greek work of Aethenæus, in which a number of learned men are represented as dining together and discussing subjects which range from the dishes before them to literary criticism and miscellaneous topics of every description." The word contains two Greek stems. The first is or "the chief meal, dinner." The second is or "a master of his craft, clever or wise man." The word itself comes from the title of a work by Aethanaeus, a Greek author writing in the 3rd century AD. His Deipnosophistai, a fifteen volume work, is a dialog between Greek men at the dinner table. Their conversation wanders from the food on the table to the cookware to literature. Another variation of the definition, according to World Wide Words.org, is "A person skilled in dinner-table conversation." This later definition comes from the practice of the Greek men in Aethanaeus' work to discuss literature, while dining.

Sources: OED.com and worldwidewords.org