aesthete

[ es-theet or, especially British, ees- ]
See synonyms for aesthete on Thesaurus.com
noun
  1. a person who has or professes to have refined sensitivity toward the beauties of art or nature.

  2. a person who affects great love of art, music, poetry, etc., and indifference to practical matters.

Origin of aesthete

1
1880–85; <Greek aisthētḗs one who perceives, equivalent to aisthē- (variant stem of aisthánesthai to perceive) + -tēs noun suffix denoting agent

Other words for aesthete

Other words from aesthete

  • hy·per·aes·thete, noun

Words Nearby aesthete

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use aesthete in a sentence

  • To everyone, except perhaps here and there an occasional aesthete, the commonest sense of the word is unaesthetic.

    Art | Clive Bell
  • We see that the man whose success is merely personal—the actor, the sophist, the millionaire, the aesthete—is incurably vulgar.

    Soliloquies in England | George Santayana
  • The service would have been pronounced by any modern aesthetic religionist—or religious aesthete, which is it?

    Sylvie and Bruno | Lewis Carroll
  • But Becky Sharp's eyes also were green, and the green of the aesthete does not suggest innocence.

    Prose Fancies (Second Series) | Richard Le Gallienne

British Dictionary definitions for aesthete

aesthete

US esthete

/ (ˈiːsθiːt) /


noun
  1. a person who has or who affects a highly developed appreciation of beauty, esp in poetry and the visual arts

Origin of aesthete

1
C19: back formation from aesthetics

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012