---

• n  an amateur who engages in an activity without serious intentions and who pretends to have knowledge
• s  showing frivolous or superficial interest; amateurish

• We were a bunch of dilettantes in an event management company, trying to figure out a way to get on with the show, in the absence of the star attraction.
• Bono's involvement with Africa began in typical celebrity-dilettante fashion.
• Back in May 2005, when millionaire Greek socialite Arianna Huffington launched her eponymous blog, many derided it as a dilettante's vanity project.

• dabbler
• sciolist
• dilettantish
• dilettanteish
• sciolistic

News & Articles

---

• Angelina Jolie Scores Major Victory in U.N.
  Photos of beautiful actors doing unspecified humanitarian work in third-world countries tend to give off sanctimonious, dilettante vibes, especially when wedged between paparazzi photos of their fellow celebrities at the beach or grocery store. But in the case of the increasingly flawless Angelina Jolie, it's perfectly legitimate. Serving as a special envoy ... More »
  June 25, 2013 - New York Magazine

Quotes

---

• Moby in Times Online
  As a spiritual dilettante, I have tried a lot of different types of meditation and the thing that really won me over with TM - apart from having my hero David Lynch as its most vocal practitioner - was its effectiveness,Moby said. "One of...
• Richard Eyre in guardian.co.uk
  Sir Richard Eyre, the stage and film director, said: "It's easy to see him as a bit of a dilettante, in law and in writing, but that would be wrong. He was very, very serious and knowledgeable about law and life, about liberty and jurisprudence in...
• Ben Affleck in Boston Globe
  I thought, well maybe I'd like to get involved, but I was nervous about it and I thought, you know, I don't want to be a dilettante,Affleck said in a speech at the Children Mending Hearts event, according to the Press Association. "People...