connoisseur
/ˌkɒnəˈsəː
/noun
An expert judge in matters of taste: a connoisseur of music...
- Certainly, there was a host of different dishes hot and steamy to cater to the tastes of connoisseurs.
- A leading connoisseur of bottled water last night advised consumers to pick and choose between bottled and mains water.
- Meanwhile the project seems to have provoked some bemused commentary among art connoisseurs.
Synonyms
expert judge (of), authority (on), specialist (in);
arbiter of taste, pundit, savant, one of the cognoscenti, aesthete;
gourmet, epicure, gastronome
informal buff
North American informal maven
Derivatives
connoisseurship
- When I argue that your connoisseurship or aestheticism are suspect and insist on my own highly materialist readings of things, it does not mean that our field is in disarray.
- Renowned for his visual acumen and connoisseurship, he grew up in Paris and New York, the son of a scholar of medieval church history.
- Why is a curatorial project in feminist revisionism, buttressed by scholarly discussions of Victorian domesticity, gender identity and literary culture, enveloped in a thick mantle of connoisseurship?
Origin
Early 18th century: from obsolete French, from conoistre 'know'.