aficionado
noun
Did you know?
Before there were nerds, geeks, stans, fanboys, or fangirls, there were aficionados. But not long before, relatively speaking. English borrowed aficionado in the early 1800s directly from Spanish, making a noun out of the past participle of the Spanish verb aficionar, which means "to inspire affection." Nerd, geek, and the rest can sometimes imply that the devotee in question is overdoing their ardor, but aficionado (which traces further back to the same Latin ancestor that gave us the English word affection) is a more neutral descriptor for someone with an abiding and thoughtful devotion to an interest or activity.
Examples of aficionado in a Sentence
Harvey Steiman, Wine Spectator, 30 June 2008
The quality varies with the individual authors, but both history buffs and aficionados of literary criticism will find food for thought here.
—Publishers Weekly, 8 Jan. 2001
When film aficionados speak of film noir, they usually refer to the look and attitude of certain films. As critics have found, such films do not form a genre; at best, they suggest a movement.
—Bonnie Smothers, Booklist, 15 Nov. 1999
Beyond scuba diving, North Carolina's Crystal Coast and Cape Lookout are famous for fishing. Although I'm not an aficionado myself, prospective anglers need only walk the docks of Moorehead City to book inshore or Gulf Stream excursions …
—James Sturz, New York Times, 26 Apr. 1998
an aficionado of the sci-fi series who has seen all the movies several times
Stacey Leasca, Travel + Leisure, 8 June 2026
An aficionado of true-crime podcasts and makeup influencers — which, in the film, are smartly combined into a single, macabre point of interest — Nawal, whose job involves digitizing paper files, is often left on the outside looking in, despite her keen eye for detective work.
—Siddhant Adlakha, Variety, 8 June 2026
Although many aficionados may be able to exercise that skill in one or two genres, rarely does a listener possess the encyclopedic knowledge for more than that.
—Juliet Izon, The Atlantic, 4 June 2026
Besides the artillery in the back room—and maybe even because of it—the Armory looks less like a gathering for modern horology aficionados and more like a meeting place for the members who signed the Declaration of Independence.
—Jayson Buford, Robb Report, 4 June 2026
See All Example Sentences for aficionado
Cite this Entry
“Aficionado.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/aficionado. Accessed 11 Jun. 2026.
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aficionado
noun
Spanish, derived from Latin affectio "affection"
