dilettantishly

comparative more dilettantishly · superlative most dilettantishly · alternative dilettanteishly

1. In a dilettantish manner.

   Superficially, of course, the art of this musician, so airy and dilettantishly brilliant, has little affair with the French State.

   1922, Paul Rosenfeld, “Musical Chronicle”, in The Dial, page 228

   4 more examples

   Horace Walpole dilettantishly, Sir Joshua Reynolds professionally, Blake prophetically, Gilpin in the manner (not the bad manner) of the gifted amateur, and devoting himself chiefly to “the picturesque” in nature, had occupied themselves with it in the eighteenth.

   1907, George Saintsbury, “English and French—Periodical Literature—Criticism and Essay-Writing”, in The Later Nineteenth Century (Periods of European Literature; volume XII), Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, pages 155–156

   Moreover, communism will lead to an unusual amount of quarrelling; those who work faithfully will feel aggrieved when they see that those who work dilettantishly receive and consume a full portion.

   1922, Emory S. Bogardus, “Aristotle and Grecian Social Thought”, in A History of Social Thought, Los Angeles, Calif.: University of Southern California Press, page 103

   Certain ministers and church agencies have caught glimmers of these implications, and have entered this field,—timidly, daintily, dilettantishly.

   1922 August 3, “Editorial”, in The Christian Century: An Undenominational Journal of Religion, volume XXXIX, number 31, Chicago, Ill., section “Religion and Public Health”, page 964, column 2

   “The danger is of complete superficiality in all directions, that you do nothing well, a lot of things . . . ‘dilettante-ishly,’ ” she said.

   1986 June 18, Deborah Duffy, “A Passion for Storytelling Lures Professor to Biography”, in The Hartford Courant, volume CXLIX, number 169, page C4