fandom
Americannoun
Etymology
Origin of fandom
Explanation
Use the word fandom to talk about the community of people who admire a particular celebrity, hero, sports team, or TV show. If you are president of the Boston Red Sox fan club, you're part of the team's fandom. Your favorite boy band might have a fandom that consists mainly of screaming pre-teens, while National Public Radio's fandom is probably mostly middle aged. If you are a fan of a singer or a series of comic books, you can say you belong to their fandom. The word has been around since the very early twentieth century, from fan, a baseball slang abbreviation of fanatic, which comes from the Latin fanaticus, "mad, or inspired by a god."
Vocabulary lists containing fandom
-dom and -hood
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A Hero's Guide to Summer Vacation
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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.
Still, the U.S. lags behind much of the world as a market for soccer fandom.
From MarketWatch • Jun. 9, 2026
But in lieu of an album drop, the mystery surrounding the Grammy-winning artist's upcoming nuptials is doing just as much to mobilise her fandom.
From BBC • Jun. 5, 2026
And the archival footage from “The Verdict” shows the extent to which fandom and media frenzy influenced the proceedings.
From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 5, 2026
He recounts how he used his Arsenal fandom to find acceptance at school, to escape from his parents’ divorce and to numb the pain of breakups.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 4, 2026
“Well, it’s all fandom stuff. I don’t make money off of it.”
From "Leah on the Offbeat" by Becky Albertalli
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.
