dilettantism

Definition

The act of behaving like a dilettante, of being an amateur or "dabbler", sometimes in the arts. Also the act of enjoying the arts, being a connoisseur.

Etymology

From dilettante + -ism.

Example Sentences

• "The brawny craftsman finds it no child's play to mould his unpliant rugged masses; neither is guidance of men a dilettantism: what it becomes when treated as a dilettantism, we may see!"
• "As Erasmus would find, the king and his advisers had a hard-edged attitude to scholarship that was worlds away from the enquiring dilettantism of Eltham."

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