connoisseur

plural connoisseurs · alternative connaisseur

1. A specialist in a given field whose opinion is highly valued, especially in one of the fine arts or in matters of taste.

   beer connoisseur

   5 more examples

   chocolate connoisseur

   wine connoisseur

   It is evident, in spite of his frequent attention to her while she draws, that in fact he knows nothing of the matter. He admires as a lover, not as a connoisseur.

   1811, [Jane Austen], chapter III, in Sense and Sensibility […], volume I, London: […] C[harles] Roworth, […], and published by T[homas] Egerton, […], →OCLC

   No; nonsense, Naumann! English ladies are not at everybody’s service as models. And you want to express too much with your painting. You would only have made a better or worse portrait with a background which every connoisseur would give a different reason for or against.

   1871–1872, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter XIX, in Middlemarch […], volume (please specify |volume=I to IV), Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, book (please specify |book=I to VIII)

   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.

   1881–1882, Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island, London; Paris: Cassell & Company, published 14 November 1883, →OCLC

   Synonyms: maven, cognoscente, virtuoso