wannabe

noun

wan·​na·​be ˈwä-nə-ˌbē 

variants or less commonly wannabee

1

: a person who wants or aspires to be someone or something else or who tries to look or act like someone else

2

: something (such as a company, city, or product) intended to rival another of its kind that has been successful

especially : one for which hopes have failed or are likely to fail

Synonyms

• aper
• copycat
• copyist
• echo
• follower
• imitator
• rubber stamp

Example Sentences

an entrepreneur who seems to have made his fortune mainly by giving how-to-get-rich lectures to entrepreneurial wannabes

Recent Examples on the Web

The Teen Queen is an aspiring Project Manager, a Catherine Tramell in Basic Instinct wannabe. —Carrie Wittmer, Vulture, 4 Apr. 2022

Kate Wallis, the popular girl with a charmed life who suddenly goes missing, and Jeanette Turner, the nerdy wannabe who is implicated in Kate’s disappearance. —Tribune News Service, cleveland, 18 Apr. 2021

Or that more than 3,000 TEDx events take place every year, with up to 20 wannabe Malcolm Gladwells participating in each one? —Dan Lyons, Time, 19 Jan. 2023

Ziggy, who isn’t really political at all, is eventually exposed as a posturing wannabe. —Michael O'sullivan, Washington Post, 17 Jan. 2023

An Andy Goldsworthy wannabe, or perhaps a hyperactive 10-year-old, has erected about 100 small cairns out by the Hall of Horrors, carbuncles in an otherwise unblemished landscape. —Cheri Lucas Rowlands, Longreads, 20 Jan. 2023

Anwar has given Abbott $6.2 million since the former state attorney general began fundraising openly as a gubernatorial wannabe in 2011. —Dallas News, 14 Oct. 2022

El Nino is a wannabe: assessing the impact of some warmer H2O in the Central Pacific on California rainfall is fuzzy. —Tom Yulsman, Discover Magazine, 14 Dec. 2014

That, Jen says, is why her husband, University of Utah assistant football coach Sharrieff Shah, is so angry with Chris Harrington and his Housewife-wannabe wife, Angie Harrington. —Scott D. Pierce, The Salt Lake Tribune, 14 Dec. 2022

See More

Word History

Etymology

from the phrase want to be

First Known Use

1976, in the meaning defined at sense 1