Connaisseur

Origin

Either a borrowing of the French connaisseur ("a 'knower', one who knows") or an updating of the earlier borrowing, connoisseur, to bring it into line with modern French orthography.

Full definition of connaisseur

Noun

1. A specialist of a given field, especially in one of the fine arts or in a matter of taste: a connoisseur.
• 1847, L. Piale (publisher), Guide to Naples and Sicily, Part I: Naples, page 42The gallery of Prince Valsavoja contains about 100 pictures several of which deserve the attention of the artist and connaisseur.
• 1890, James Knowles, ed, The Nineteenth Century: a monthly review (July–December 1890), page 579They pass their Sundays agreeably, in complete repose: seated outside their doors, dressed in the best clothes, and displaying, with serene satisfaction, the many rings, pendants, and huge earrings of rare beauty, inherited for many past generations, and wich possess an individual character that the connaisseur at once recognises.
• 1994, Yirmiyahu Yovel, Gideon Segal, ed, Spinoza on Knowledge and the Human Mind: Papers Presented at the Second Jerusalem Conference, page xiiThe support of Mr. Albert Igoin, a Spinoza reader and connaisseur of long date, is particularly appreciated.
• 2004, Arthur Hartkamp and Carla Joustra, Kluwer Law International, Towards a European Civil Code: Third Fully Revised and Expanded Edition, a footnote on page 159But it needed a connaisseur of Roman law, namely Wolfgang Ernst, Bonn/Cambridge, to remind me that justum facere is the common root of Recht-Fertigung and justification.

Synonyms

• connoisseur