aesthete

[ es-theetor, especially British, ees- ]

noun

1. a person who has or professes to have refined sensitivity toward the beauties of art or nature.

   Synonyms: connoisseur

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

   Synonyms: dilettante

aesthete

/ ˈiːsθiːt /

noun

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

Other Words From

• hyper·aesthete noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of aesthete¹

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

Word History and Origins

Origin of aesthete¹

C19: back formation from aesthetics

Example Sentences

Everyone else seemed like naturally insouciant aesthetes, like they woke up with the knowledge of culture, art, and hipness, whereas everything I knew felt labored and deeply, obsessively limned.

From Vox

The trouble was that the fight took on a life of its own, until the warrior in Hilton nearly crushed the aesthete.

From The Daily Beast

He makes people who I call the aesthete—who have a very specific aesthetic point of view.

From The Daily Beast

Edith was a fascinating character, at once a strict fundamentalist and a sophisticated, warm-hearted aesthete.

From The Daily Beast

The aesthete who had so touched him with his impassioned voice, was going to say the saving word.

From Project Gutenberg

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

From Project Gutenberg

We see that the man whose success is merely personal—the actor, the sophist, the millionaire, the aesthete—is incurably vulgar.

From Project Gutenberg

The service would have been pronounced by any modern aesthetic religionist—or religious aesthete, which is it?

From Project Gutenberg

But Becky Sharp's eyes also were green, and the green of the aesthete does not suggest innocence.

From Project Gutenberg