DILETTANTE (dilettanti)

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

Irregular inflected form: dilettanti   

 Dictionary entry overview: What does dilettante mean? 

• DILETTANTE (noun)
  The noun DILETTANTE has 1 sense:

1. an amateur who engages in an activity without serious intentions and who pretends to have knowledge

  Familiarity information: DILETTANTE used as a noun is very rare.

• DILETTANTE (adjective)
  The adjective DILETTANTE has 1 sense:

1. showing frivolous or superficial interest; amateurish

  Familiarity information: DILETTANTE used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DILETTANTE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

An amateur who engages in an activity without serious intentions and who pretends to have knowledge

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

dabbler; dilettante; sciolist

Hypernyms ("dilettante" is a kind of...):

amateur (someone who pursues a study or sport as a pastime)

Derivation:

dilettante (showing frivolous or superficial interest; amateurish)

• DILETTANTE (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Showing frivolous or superficial interest; amateurish

Synonyms:

dilettante; dilettanteish; dilettantish; sciolistic

Context example:

his dilettantish efforts at painting

Similar:

superficial (concerned with or comprehending only what is apparent or obvious; not deep or penetrating emotionally or intellectually)

Derivation:

dilettante (an amateur who engages in an activity without serious intentions and who pretends to have knowledge)

 Context examples 

What is to me a means of livelihood is to him the merest hobby of a dilettante.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

It was unparalleled, undreamed-of, that I, Humphrey Van Weyden, a scholar and a dilettante, if you please, in things artistic and literary, should be lying here on a Bering Sea seal-hunting schooner.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)