How to Use dilettante in a Sentence

dilettante

noun
  • You can always tell a true expert from a dilettante.
  • None of them, however, thought him much more than a dilettante.
    — Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker, 3 May 2021
  • Most people who use a food bank are not bored, rich dilettantes looking to game the system.
    — Mallory Ortberg, Slate Magazine, 15 Aug. 2017
  • From my point of view — that of a dilettante — this is a bad PR move and not a lot more.
    — Elizabeth Lopatto, The Verge, 14 Dec. 2018
  • Any dilettante with money can buy a mixer and auto beat match their way into the dance world.
    — Katie Bain, Billboard, 10 Feb. 2022
  • This was an amateur move, critics sniffed; the flailing of a dilettante out of his depth.
    — Walter Russell Mead, WSJ, 28 May 2018
  • In terms of practice and playing, Curry is a golf dilettante.
    — Scott Ostler, SFChronicle.com, 12 July 2018
  • The Big 12 already bears the cross of a big-time football dilettante.
    — Kevin Sherrington, Dallas News, 25 Sep. 2020
  • This is not mood music, pretty sounds assembled at a dilettante’s whim.
    — Stephen Hough, New York Times, 2 Mar. 2018
  • And, of course, the inviolable truth that the dilettante boy king remains in charge, come what may.
    — Andy Meek, BGR, 5 Oct. 2022
  • Packer and Srulovich aren’t dilettantes, either.
    — Lela London, Forbes.com, 26 Aug. 2025
  • There are many ways of seeing landscape quite as good; and none more vivid, in spite of canting dilettantes, than from a railway train.
    — Clara Gari, Smithsonian, 24 June 2017
  • There are many ways of seeing landscape quite as good; and none more vivid, in spite of canting dilettantes, than from a railway train.
    — Smithsonian, 23 June 2017
  • Growing up a dilettante with a taste for action, he was drawn more to outdoor adventures than his studies.
    — David James, Anchorage Daily News, 26 Mar. 2023
  • Spoken like a true pseudo-bohemian trust-fund dilettante, an archetype as old as dynastic wealth.
    — Judy Berman, Time, 29 Jan. 2026
  • Is Steyer just a billionaire dilettante trying to buy an office?
    — Los Angeles Times, 30 May 2026
  • Kenner has described the hip-hop star as a naive amateur diplomat — a dilettante, not a criminal.
    — Paul Duggan, Washington Post, 31 Mar. 2023
  • Moore is the real power in this power couple and doesn’t need her husband, who is less of an auteur and more of a dilettante, to get her roles.
    — Kerry Lengel, azcentral, 15 Aug. 2019
  • Critics derided him throughout as a rich dilettante seeking to buy a seat in Congress.
    — Washington Post, 11 Dec. 2021
  • The commanding officer of the fort is an inept dilettante played by Ken Berry.
    — Matt Schudel, Washington Post, 9 July 2022
  • The Journal story also implied Polychain’s founder is a dilettante who is in over his head.
    — Jeff John Roberts, Fortune, 11 Dec. 2019
  • With her rich husband and expensive clothes, Pelosi was assumed by many of her new colleagues to be a dilettante or even a bimbo.
    — Molly Ball, Time, 6 Nov. 2025
  • Durant is not looking to become a dilettante team owner — in it for the profit, or the celebrity status, or as a power trip.
    — Scott Ostler, San Francisco Chronicle, 28 Jan. 2018
  • Yet, the stubborn image of Monroe as a literary dilettante remains.
    — Marc Weingarten, Los Angeles Times, 30 May 2026
  • And both are rear-drive, because all-wheel drive is for those timid dilettantes who buy Lamborghinis and Audis.
    — John Pearley Huffman, Car and Driver, 29 Apr. 2020
  • But in croquet, age is no barrier to mastery, and Grimsley’s guests, who had flown in from around the country, were no dilettantes.
    — Tara Bahrampour, Washington Post, 10 May 2023
  • Using his fortune for exploration was not the whim of a dilettante but the result of a drive to comprehend the world in its complexity.
    — Edward Rothstein, WSJ, 11 Dec. 2020
  • Thinking otherwise is the mistake of amateurs and dilettantes.
    — Padgett Powell, Harpers Magazine, 30 June 2026
  • Ranked-choice voting is the crack cocaine of political dilettantes — very addictive, but only the pushers get high.
    — David Lebedoff, Twin Cities, 30 Mar. 2017
  • None of these dilettante candidates has held public office, and none of them is willing to start at the beginning in local politics.
    — Nicholas Goldberg, Star Tribune, 9 July 2021

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'dilettante.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: