Thesaurus results for WANNABE

wannabe

noun

ˈwä-nə-ˌbē

variants also wannabee

Definition of wannabe

as in follower

a person who adopts the appearance or behavior of another especially in an obvious way an entrepreneur who seems to have made his fortune mainly by giving how-to-get-rich lectures to entrepreneurial wannabes

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Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Recent Examples of wannabe And they’ve been worn by working cowboys and just about every Western wannabe in the country. — Sandra Dallas, Denver Post, 8 June 2026 Especially early in its career, Hum was dreadfully misclassified as just another soft-to-loud/Smashing Pumpkins and Nirvana wannabe, and remained criminally under-appreciated for its heavy/stoner-friendly Midwestern shoegaze vibes long after its breakup. — Jonathan Cohen, SPIN, 16 May 2026 Most political wannabes lack big money and positive high visibility. — Jim Nowlan, Chicago Tribune, 19 Apr. 2026 The 27-year-old Canadian astrophysicist wannabe turned content creator turned actor first captured people’s attention on TikTok with his absurdist comedy skits. — Carly Thomas, HollywoodReporter, 10 Apr. 2026 See All Example Sentences for wannabe

Recent Examples of Synonyms for wannabe

Noun

Mascots, once an afterthought, are celebrities—Gritty, the beguiling ogre that represents Philadelphia’s hockey team, the Flyers, has significantly more Instagram followers than any of the team’s players.

— Ellen Cushing, The Atlantic, 17 July 2026
Johnson, known as DreamDoll Brii on social media, was a budding influencer with more than 100,000 followers on Instagram and more than 500,000 on her TikTok account _itgirbri.

— Angie DiMichele, Sun Sentinel, 17 July 2026

Definition of follower

Noun

But the arrival of Buc-ee's supercharged the trend and spawned imitators like Wally's, which has three 50,000-square-foot locations in the Midwest, with plans for more.

— Kevin Williams, CNBC, 2 July 2026
The frontier labs keep shipping the next capability while the imitators are still training on the last one, and the value keeps accruing to whoever is ahead rather than to whoever copied the leader's previous answers.

— Jon Markman, Forbes.com, 26 June 2026

Definition of imitator

Noun

Sarandos’ comments echo remarks Head of UCAN Scripted Series Jinny Howe made to Deadline last week.

— Peter White, Deadline, 16 July 2026
But Thomas Tuchel took those echoes and put a colossal microphone in front of them, cranking up the decibels to make this failure worse than the others.

— Tim Spiers, New York Times, 16 July 2026

Definition of echo

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waning

wannabe

wannabes

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“Wannabe.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/wannabe. Accessed 21 Jul. 2026.

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Synonyms of wannabe

noun

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