CONNOISSEUR

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does connoisseur mean? 

• CONNOISSEUR (noun)
  The noun CONNOISSEUR has 1 sense:

1. an expert able to appreciate a field; especially in the fine arts

  Familiarity information: CONNOISSEUR used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• CONNOISSEUR (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

An expert able to appreciate a field; especially in the fine arts

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

cognoscente; connoisseur

Hypernyms ("connoisseur" is a kind of...):

authority (an expert whose views are taken as definitive)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "connoisseur"):

aesthete; esthete (one who professes great sensitivity to the beauty of art and nature)

wine lover (a connoisseur of fine wines; a grape nut)

Derivation:

connoisseurship (love of or taste for fine objects of art)

 Context examples 

This, when it was brought to him, he drank slowly, like a connoisseur, lingering on the taste and still looking about him at the cliffs and up at our signboard.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

My uncle ran his eyes over the fine lines of his magnificent figure with the glance of a connoisseur.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He admires as a lover, not as a connoisseur.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

“I am a connoisseur,” said he, taking another cigarette from the box—his fourth—and lighting it from the stub of that which he had finished.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

"You are a thing of beauty and a joy forever," said Jo, looking through her hand with the air of a connoisseur at the blue feather against the golden hair.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

“Don't say no,” returned the little woman, looking at me with the aspect of a connoisseur; “a little bit more eyebrow?”

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Then Sherlock Holmes cocked his eye at me, leaning back on the cushions with a pleased and yet critical face, like a connoisseur who has just taken his first sip of a comet vintage.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

A closet was filled with wine; the plate was of silver, the napery elegant; a good picture hung upon the walls, a gift (as Utterson supposed) from Henry Jekyll, who was much of a connoisseur; and the carpets were of many plies and agreeable in colour.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

The betting was still steadily in favour of Wilson, for he had a number of bye-battles to set against this single victory of Jim’s, and it was thought by connoisseurs who had seen him spar that the singular defensive tactics which had given him his nickname would prove very puzzling to a raw antagonist.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

His identity had already been noised abroad, and many an elderly connoisseur plucked his long net-purse out of his fob, in order to put a few guineas upon the man who would represent the school of the past against the present.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)