dilettante
Americannoun
-
dilettantes,
plural
-
dilettanti
plural
-
a person who takes up an art, activity, or subject merely for amusement, especially in a desultory or superficial way; dabbler.
- Synonyms:
- amateur
-
a lover of an art or science, especially of a fine art.
adjective
noun
-
a person whose interest in a subject is superficial rather than professional
-
a person who loves the arts
adjective
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of dilettante
1725–35; < Italian, noun use of present participle of dilettare < Latin dēlectāre to delight
Explanation
Though dilettante might sound like a nice French word, don't use it on your friend who thinks he can play the guitar after several short lessons. A dilettante is an amateur, often one who pretends to be very knowledgeable. The meaning of dilettante has changed since it was borrowed from the Italian in the mid 1700s. Originally, it meant "lover of the arts," but began to take on a negative slant as the idea of doing something as a professional took hold strongly during the 18th century. A dilettante was a mere lover of art as opposed to one who did it professionally. Today, the word implies you're pretending to be more of an artist than you're interested in or capable of being, so if you call your friend who likes to paint a dilettante, it's like you're calling him or her a poser.
Vocabulary lists containing dilettante
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The reason for its omission, one assumes, was the likely conclusion by the editors that Maugham was but a dilettante, not an expert, who believed that Zurbarán “was no genius.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 24, 2026
Two of our esteemed gubernatorial candidates, the cowboy and the dilettante, apparently could not find ties for the first debate Wednesday night, showing up with dress shirts casually unbuttoned.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 23, 2026
"I like facts, I like knowledge, I like having wide interests. There's various ways of describing such a person, dilettante might be one way and polymath might be another."
From BBC ● Nov. 29, 2025
To regain its footing, AMC has courted dilettante “meme stock” investors, announced plans to sell AMC-branded microwave popcorn in supermarkets and even invested in a struggling Nevada gold mine.
From New York Times ● Sep. 4, 2022
Charles wasn’t a dilettante; he was serious about the breeding and created his own new lines of pigeons.
From "Charles and Emma: The Darwins' Leap of Faith" by Deborah Heiligman
Him and all the other dilettantes who don’t know the wonders of VistaVision.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 5, 2025
If anyone’s tempted to suggest that the place is filled with rich dilettantes, he noted that 36 percent of the people in this year’s entering class are eligible to receive Pell Grants for lower-income students.
From New York Times ● Aug. 20, 2022
Celebrity activists have long been written off as self-important dilettantes.
From Slate ● Aug. 28, 2019
In a backslapping musical world of insipid dilettantes, Mark and his music stand for absolute conviction, absolute meaning and the absolute refusal to compromise your vision.
From The Guardian ● Feb. 26, 2019
‘There were no scientists in Stuart England,’ we are told, ‘and all the men we have grouped together under that heading were in their varying degrees dilettantes.’
From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton
This kind of heroic misinformation provoked some murmuring from English dilettanti who, arriving in Rome armed with nothing but their recollections of Piranesi's engravings, were disappointed by the city.
From Time Magazine Archive
Some of the finest early lithographs were by French dilettanti whose names have not transpired.
From Time Magazine Archive
The directors are just so many dilettanti who don't know their job.
From Time Magazine Archive
It is too favourite an opinion, both with dilettanti and artists, that the new style must invariably be the most beautiful; permitting fashion even to corrupt the arts.
From The History of Painting in Italy, Vol. IV (of 6) from the Period of the Revival of the Fine Arts to the End of the Eighteenth Century by Luigi Antonio Lanzi
Knightly orders continued to be founded, but they were the amusements of dilettanti in honor and ancient custom.
From Women of Mediæval France Woman: in all ages and in all countries Vol. 5 (of 10) by Pierce Butler
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
