dilettante

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

And he has often been underestimated, such as when he won a majority government in 2015 at the age of 44, despite being portrayed by his political opponents as something of a dilettante.

From BBC ● Dec. 21, 2024

Crystal does fine in this environment; he doesn’t come off as a tourist or a dilettante.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 24, 2024

Growing up, the conductor Maxime Pascal was a self-identified musical dilettante.

From New York Times ● Aug. 16, 2023

Nevertheless, several accomplished alpinists not on her team regarded Pittman as a grandstanding dilettante.

From "Into Thin Air" by Jon Krakauer

Momoa is more introspective, careful never to imply that his friends in the sector — Dwayne Johnson, with Teremana Tequila, and Ryan Reynolds, with Aviation Gin — are dilettantes.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 12, 2023

Today, however, people engaged in the serious craft of politics are understandably uninterested in the work of dilettantes who dabble at politics to the detriment of their vocation.

From Washington Post ● Sep. 7, 2022

She and Steven Weber play Debbie and Stew Klein, a couple of boomer dilettantes who crash their kid’s married life with the news that they’re in debt.

From New York Times ● Feb. 5, 2020

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

Ben thought of Charlie and Jamie less as professional money managers than as dilettantes or, as he put it, “a couple of smart guys just punting around in the markets.”

From "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis

Some of the finest early lithographs were by French dilettanti whose names have not transpired.

From Time Magazine Archive

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

The directors are just so many dilettanti who don't know their job.

From Time Magazine Archive

Farming is usually a very costly taste for dilettanti.

From Erlach Court by Ossip Schubin

But—for the first time—the idea of duty to be done found its way into these hearts, the beauty of self-sacrifice subdued these dilettanti.

From Underground Man by Gabriel Tarde