dilettante

noun

dil·​et·​tante ˈdi-lə-ˌtänt 

-ˌtant;

ˌdi-lə-ˈtänt,

-ˈtant

plural dilettantes or dilettanti ˌdi-lə-ˈtän-tē 

-ˈtan-tē

1

: a person having a superficial interest in an art or a branch of knowledge : dabbler

Mr. Carroll often criticizes the superficial lives of the dilettantes … who mingle in New York.

—Mark Stevens

Whitman ran an amateurish campaign … and was painted as an aristocratic dilettante.

—Eleanor Clift

2

dated : an admirer or lover of the arts

It was unparalleled, undreamed-of, that I, Humphrey Van Weyden, a scholar and a dilettante, if you please, in things artistic and literary, should be lying here on a Bering Sea seal-hunting schooner.

—Jack London

dilettante adjective

dilettantish

ˈdi-lə-ˌtän-tish 

-ˌtan-

ˌdi-lə-ˈtän-

-ˈtan-

adjective

dilettantism

ˈdi-lə-ˌtän-ˌti-zəm 

-ˌtan-

ˌdi-lə-ˈtän 

-ˈtan-

noun

Synonyms

• amateur
• dabbler
• hobbyist
• layman
• nonexpert
• nonprofessional
• potterer
• putterer
• tinkerer

Choose the Right Synonym for dilettante

amateur, dilettante, dabbler, tyro mean a person who follows a pursuit without attaining proficiency or professional status.

amateur often applies to one practicing an art without mastery of its essentials

a painting obviously done by an amateur

; in sports it may also suggest not so much lack of skill but avoidance of direct remuneration.

remained an amateur despite lucrative offers

dilettante may apply to the lover of an art rather than its skilled practitioner but usually implies elegant trifling in the arts and an absence of serious commitment.

had no patience for dilettantes

dabbler suggests desultory habits of work and lack of persistence.

a dabbler who started novels but never finished them

tyro implies inexperience often combined with audacity with resulting crudeness or blundering.

shows talent but is still a mere tyro

Examples of dilettante in a Sentence

I recently spent a week in Alaska trying to learn how to be a mountaineer. I did not succeed very well, and the details are not very interesting. I finished the course (I was enrolled in a course) thinking that perhaps I am better off remaining a slightly-above-average mountain dilettante. An occasional rock climber. —Jason Lee Steorts, National Review, 18 Aug. 2008

Being a powerhouse herself in ways that make today's feminist superwomen look like dilettantes, she inevitably clashed with star directors like Maurice Tourneur and Ernst Lubitsch. —Molly Haskell, New York Times Book Review, 6 June 1999

Most of the articles published in Naval History reflect time-consuming research and investigation. The efforts are not the work of dilettantes, but of professional and semiprofessional historians. —Michael M. Bergfeld, Naval History, July/August 1997

You can always tell a true expert from a dilettante.

she writes about art not from the point of view of an artist but from that of a committed dilettante

Recent Examples on the Web

Back in the 1930s, Cocteau was dubbed a dilettante. —Harriet Quick, theweek, 17 July 2024

Bruce Wayne: To the public at large, Bruce Wayne is a shallow dilettante, apparently wasting his parents’ vast fortune on frivolous pursuits and hedonistic pleasures. —Denise Petski, Deadline, 20 June 2024

Under the impression that Tom is good friends with his son, Dickie Greenleaf, a trust-fund dilettante who has decided to live in Italy to paint and dillydally instead of working with his father as planned, Mr. Greenleaf offers Tom money to go to Italy and convince the playboy to come home. —Rafaela Bassili, Vulture, 4 Apr. 2024

An even simpler reason is that Trump is a vain, distractible dilettante. —Andrew Marantz, The New Yorker, 27 Mar. 2024

Word History

Etymology

Italian, from present participle of dilettare to delight, from Latin dilectare — more at delight

First Known Use

1748, in the meaning defined at sense 2

Kids Definition

dilettante

noun

dil·​et·​tante ˈdil-ə-ˌtänt 

-ˌtant;

ˌdil-ə-ˈtänt(-ē),

-ˈtant(-ē)

plural dilettantes or dilettanti -ˈtänt-ē 

-ˈtant-ē

1

: an admirer or lover of the arts

2

: a person who has a shallow interest in an art or area of knowledge

dilettante adjective

dilettantism

-ˌtän-ˌtiz-əm  -ˌtan- 

noun