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Definition of dilettante
dilettantes
ordilettanti
play \-ˈtän-tē, -ˈtan-tē\1 : an admirer or lover of the arts
2 : a person having a superficial interest in an art or a branch of knowledge : dabbler
dilettante
adjectiveFrom the M-W Editors
Examples of dilettante in a Sentence
I recently spent a week in Alaska trying to learn how to be a mountaineer. I did not succeed very well, and the details are not very interesting. I finished the course (I was enrolled in a course) thinking that perhaps I am better off remaining a slightly-above-average mountain dilettante. An occasional rock climber. —Jason Lee Steorts, National Review, 18 Aug. 2008
Being a powerhouse herself in ways that make today's feminist superwomen look like dilettantes, she inevitably clashed with star directors like Maurice Tourneur and Ernst Lubitsch. —Molly Haskell, New York Times Book Review, 6 June 1999
Most of the articles published in Naval History reflect time-consuming research and investigation. The efforts are not the work of dilettantes, but of professional and semiprofessional historians. —Michael M. Bergfeld, Naval History, July/August 1997
You can always tell a true expert from a dilettante.
she writes about art not from the point of view of an artist but from that of a committed dilettante
Recent Examples of dilettante from the Web
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There are many ways of seeing landscape quite as good; and none more vivid, in spite of canting dilettantes, than from a railway train.
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Cecile Monteyne draws on the screwball comedies of the past to bring out the laughs as Julia Budder, the party's hostess and dilettante producer of the new show.
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Surely not simply by picking and choosing one side or the other of these various binaries – aristocrat or democrat, unqualified lover of freedom or unrepentant slaveholder, true wine lover or snobbish dilettante.
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Yet the radical democratization of music discovery made possible by streaming services has made instant stars of ambitious rap dilettantes like Lil Pump.
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After gauging the reaction of many TV critics, TV lovers, and TV dilettantes to the new fantasy series American Gods, one clear pattern has emerged.
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After gauging the reaction of many TV critics, TV lovers, and TV dilettantes to the new fantasy series American Gods, one clear pattern has emerged.
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In Paris in the early nineteen-eighties, two young couples cross paths: a poetic dilettante and his pedantic girlfriend and a singer in a Baroque ensemble and her computer-programmer boyfriend.
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Ranked-choice voting is the crack cocaine of political dilettantes — very addictive, but only the pushers get high.
These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'dilettante'. Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Origin and Etymology of dilettante
Italian, from present participle of dilettare to delight, from Latin dilectare — more at delight
Synonym Discussion of dilettante
DILETTANTE Defined for English Language Learners
dilettante
playDefinition of dilettante for English Language Learners
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: a person whose interest in an art or in an area of knowledge is not very deep or serious
Learn More about dilettante
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See words that rhyme with dilettante Thesaurus: All synonyms and antonyms for dilettante Spanish Central: Translation of dilettante Nglish: Translation of dilettante for Spanish speakers Britannica English: Translation of dilettante for Arabic speakers
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