aficionado
[uh-fish-yuh-nah-doh; Spanish ah-fee-thyaw-nah-th aw, ah-fee-syaw-]
- an ardent devotee; fan, enthusiast.
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Also afficionado.
Origin of aficionado
1835–45; < Spanish: literally, amateur, past participle in -ado -ate1 of aficionar to engender affection, equivalent to afición affection1 + -ar infinitive suffix
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for aficionado
Contemporary Examples
So she was an aficionado of classical music, for soundtracks or otherwise?
‘Mozart in the Jungle’: Inside Amazon’s Brave New World of Sex, Drugs, and Classical MusicKevin Fallon
December 23, 2014
For the aficionado or the neophyte, Comics is a useful overview of a richly creative period in a burgeoning art.
Each is expertly introduced by Michael Sims, an aficionado of the genre.
Since, then I have become an aficionado of the publicly uttered F-word.
Shushannah Walshe came aboard as our Sarah Palin aficionado.
Historical Examples
Every man and boy in Spain is an aficionado, a bullfight "fan," a frantic bullfight "bug."
The Wolf CubPatrick Casey
aficionado
- an ardent supporter or devoteea jazz aficionado
- a devotee of bullfighting
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Word Origin
Spanish, from aficionar to arouse affection, from afición affection
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
Word Origin and History for aficionado
n.
1845, from Spanish aficionado "amateur," specifically "devotee of bullfighting," literally "fond of," from afición "affection," from Latin affectionem (see affection). "Most sources derive this word from the Spanish verb aficionar but the verb does not appear in Spanish before 1555, and the word aficionado is recorded in the 1400's" [Barnhart]. In English, originally of devotees of bullfighting; in general use by 1882.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper