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amateur - 4 dictionary results

am⋅a⋅teur

  [am-uh-choor, -cher, -ter, am-uh-tur]
Use amateur in a Sentence
–noun
1. a person who engages in a study, sport, or other activity for pleasure rather than for financial benefit or professional reasons. Compare professional.
2. an athlete who has never competed for payment or for a monetary prize.
3. a person inexperienced or unskilled in a particular activity: Hunting lions is not for amateurs.
4. a person who admires something; devotee; fan: an amateur of the cinema.
–adjective
5. characteristic of or engaged in by an amateur; nonprofessional: an amateur painter; amateur tennis.
Origin:
1775–85; < F, MF < L amātor lover, equiv. to amā- (s. of amāre to love) + -tor -tor, replaced by F -teur (< L -tōr-, obl. s. of -tor); see -eur

Synonyms:
2. nonprofessional. 3. dilettante, tyro, novice.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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am·a·teur   (ām'ə-tûr', -tər, -chŏŏr', -chər, -tyŏŏr')   
n.  
  1. A person who engages in an art, science, study, or athletic activity as a pastime rather than as a profession.
  2. Sports An athlete who has never accepted money, or who accepts money under restrictions specified by a regulatory body, for participating in a competition.
  3. One lacking the skill of a professional, as in an art.
adj.  
  1. Of or performed by an amateur.
  2. Made up of amateurs: an amateur cast.
  3. Not professional; unskillful.

[French, from Latin amātor, lover, from amāre, to love.]
am'a·teur·ism n.
Synonyms: These nouns mean one engaging in a pursuit but lacking professional skill: a musician who is a gifted amateur, not a professional; a dabbler in the stock market; a sculptor but a mere dilettante.
Antonym: professional

Word History: When Mrs. T.W. Atkinson remarked in her 1863 Recollections of the Tartar Steppes and their Inhabitants, "I am no amateur of these melons," she used amateur in a sense unfamiliar to us. That sense, "a lover, an admirer," is, however, clearly descended from the senses of the word's ultimate Latin source, amātor, "lover, devoted friend, devotee, enthusiastic pursuer of an objective," and from its Latin-derived French source, amateur, with a similar range of meanings. First recorded in English in 1784 with the sense in which Mrs. Atkinson used it, amateur is found in 1786 with a meaning more familiar to us, "a person who engages in an art, for example, as a pastime rather than as a profession," a sense that had already developed in French. Given the limitations of doing something as an amateur, it is not surprising that the word is soon after recorded in the disparaging sense we still use to refer to someone who lacks professional skill or ease in performance.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Amateur

Am`a*teur"\, n. [F., fr. L. amator lover, fr. amare to love.] A person attached to a particular pursuit, study, or science as to music or painting; esp. one who cultivates any study or art, from taste or attachment, without pursuing it professionally.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
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Language Translation for : amateur
Spanish: aficionado, amateur,
German: der, *die Amateur(in),
Japanese: アマチュア
More Translations »

amateur 
1784, "one who has a taste for (something)," from Fr. amateur "lover of," from O.Fr., from L. amatorem (nom. amator) "lover," from amatus, pp. of amare "to love" (see Amy). Meaning "dabbler" (as opposed to professional) is from 1786.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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