Amiture

Amiture

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am·a·teur

| \ ˈa-mə-chər

, -ˌchu̇r , -(ˌ)tər

, -ˌtu̇r

, -ˌtyu̇r \

1

: one who engages in a pursuit, study, science, or sport as a pastime rather than as a profession

She played soccer as an amateur before turning professional. a tournament that is open to both amateurs and professionals

2

: one lacking in experience and competence in an art or science

The people running that company are a bunch of amateurs . He's a mere amateur when it comes to cooking.

3

: devotee , admirer

I am a philologist or amateur of the language … — Phillip Howard

amateurish
\
ˌa-mə-ˈchər-ish , -ˈchu̇r- , -ˈtər- , -ˈtu̇r-
, -ˈtyu̇r
\
adjective

amateurism
\
ˈa-mə-chər-ˌi-zəm , -ˌchu̇r- , -(ˌ)tər-
, -ˌtu̇r- , -ˌtyu̇r-
\
noun

This is not your grandfather’s brand of amateur athletics.

—

Blake Toppmeyer, USA TODAY , 4 Mar. 2022

Legislation allowing student-athletes to pursue endorsement opportunities and monetize their celebrity status will have an enormous impact on the landscape of amateur athletics.

—

Paul Myerberg, USA Today , 26 May 2021

Ouimet, who died in 1967, remained a lifelong resident of the Boston area and continued to win golf championships as an amateur for many years after 1913.

—

Bill Pennington, New York Times , 14 June 2022

Sparring at seventeen with a handsome Black kid who fought as an amateur under the name of Voodoo DaLeeba.

—

Arthur Krystal, The New Yorker , 17 Jan. 2022

There have been few moments in the history of college sports or amateur sports that have been as dramatic or as impactful as this.

—

Taylor Wilson, USA TODAY , 30 June 2021

amateur dramatic
amateur dramatics

amateur dramatic
amateur dramatics

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Merriam-Webster

am·a·teur

| \ ˈam-ə-ˌtər

, -ˌchər \

1

: a person who takes part in sports or occupations for pleasure and not for pay

2

: a person who takes part in something without having experience or skill in it

amateurish
\
ˌam-ə-ˈtər-ish , -ˈchər-
\
adjective
an amateurish actor

: not professional

amateur athletes

Relentless
Unpredictable
Slow
Swift

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amateur , dilettante , dabbler , tyro mean a person who follows a pursuit without attaining proficiency or professional status. amateur often applies to one practicing an art without mastery of its essentials

a painting obviously done by an amateur

; in sports it may also suggest not so much lack of skill but avoidance of direct remuneration.

remained an amateur despite lucrative offers

dilettante may apply to the lover of an art rather than its skilled practitioner but usually implies elegant trifling in the arts and an absence of serious commitment.

had no patience for dilettantes

dabbler suggests desultory habits of work and lack of persistence.

a dabbler who started novels but never finished them

tyro implies inexperience often combined with audacity with resulting crudeness or blundering.

shows talent but is still a mere tyro

The earliest sense of amateur ("one that has a marked fondness, liking, or taste") is strongly connected to its roots: the word came into English from the French amateur , which in turn comes from the Latin word for “lover” ( amator ). This has led some people to assume that the word is properly used only in the sense “one who performs something for love rather than for money.” However, as is the case with so many other English words, amateur may mean two strikingly different things, referring to one who does something for the love of it and also to one who is not terribly competent at something.
Our earliest record of the word's literal sense comes from a 1777 source. By 1790, however, it was already being used in the somewhat condescending extended sense, as seen in George Rous’s description of Edmund Burke as “a bystander, a mere amateur of aristocracy” in his Thoughts on Government .

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'amateur.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback .

1757, in the meaning defined at sense 1

borrowed from French, going back to Middle French, "one who loves, lover," borrowed from Latin amātor "lover, enthusiastic admirer, devotee," from amāre "to have affection for, love, be in love, make love to" (of uncertain origin) + -tōr-, -tor, agent suffix

Note:
Latin amāre has been explained as an original stative verb with -ē- (hence, *ama-ē-, comparable to *sta-ē- > stāre "to stand"), formed from a root present *ama-, going back to an Indo-European verbal base *h 2 m̥h 3 - or *h 3 m̥h 3 - "take hold of, grasp" (whence also Sanskrit ámīti "takes hold of, swears," Greek ómnymi, omnýnai "to affirm with an oath," presumably originally "hold fast to an object while swearing"). Semantically the development in Latin is hypothetically "to grasp the hand of" > "to treat as a friend" > "to love." Supporting the presence of the verbal base in Italic would be the form amatens, allegedly, "(they) have seized" or "they have received" in a Sabellic text (the Aes Rapinum of the ancient Marrucini). According to an older theory amāre may be linked to a group of expressive/nursery words, as Latin amita "aunt," *amma "mother" (presumed from derivatives in personal names), Oscan ammai (dative singular) "mother." Another point of comparison with amāre has been Old Irish námae (genitive námat ) "enemy," if it goes back to a participial formation *n(e)-h 2 m̥h 3 -(e)nt- "not loving" (compare Latin inimicus enemy ), though the verbal base *h 2 emh 3 - is not otherwise attested in this or any other sense in Celtic. Concerning the derivative amīcus "friend" see note at amiable .
From the Editors at Merriam-Webster
“Amateur.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary , Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/amateur. Accessed 26 Aug. 2022.
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Amiture is Jack Whitescarver & Coco Goupil. Coming off the heels of a debut LP in 2021, Whitescarver asked Goupil to join the group. Goupil quickly brought a new element to the mix, specifically in their guitar playing, hazier production, and affinity for the likes of Tricky and Massive Attack. This new element mixes well with the dance-oriented core of Amiture’s debut LP, which Them Magazine called "Mysterious and abstract […] a glimpse into Amiture’s bleak world on fire.”
Amiture is pleased in conjuring a sonic world that can appear veiled—and even playfully illegible. Their character is that of a narrator condemned to give form to a series of events that may bear no meaning in their association, but all of which are packed tight with emotion, interest, and memory. They keeps their own dignity by taunting the listener, but only a little bit. The Beach pursues this meandering expressivity with grace.
In their prior musical work, Amiture (then a solo project) used his given name, Jack Whitescarver. Under this name, he spent about two years touring the music that would become The Beach along with his older catalog of sparse, experimental, and sometimes humorous music. The songs that make up Amiture’s debut took their form in front of live audiences that placed what-would-become-Amiture’s music in the worlds of acts like Pelada, Kedr Livansky, and Minimal Violence.
Listening to the music & lyrics of The Beach is like using a fading flashlight to illuminate a cave—where one is unsure of whether they are on their way out or if they are just getting deeper. This journey, however, is reprised and explored with club beats, pop melodies, and a production fidelity that couples creative ambition and spatial darkness in ways not unlike the baroque pop masterpieces of late 1960s Scott Walker. The Beach can be a pop album or it can be a broody meditation—this choice is up to the listener.
The music of Amiture also have a filmic quality to them, one that adds a VHS sheen to the diaristic aura of this body of songs. The tracks “Touch,” “The Beach,” and “Let’s Talk" display this characteristic best. On “The Beach,” Amiture sings, “And I’m staring out that window out at the sea—There I see the rare reflection of you and me—The dog is racing down from the other side of the hill.” It is in the simultaneity of feeling and image that Amiture’s music feels born of a cinematic instinct—nothing is explained but everything is on display.
Amiture’s sound exists in the vast in-betweens of Kate Bush and Suicide, or Throbbing Gristle and Prince. It nods to contemporary club, dance, & sound music while paying homage to melody and lyricism. The Beach , however, is not an attempt at staking a flag in some unknown sonic universe, either. The textures, lyrics, and imagery are indeed referential, but they aim to be so in such a way that deepens the listener’s aesthetic & emotional understanding of said references. This is an album that unearths the roots systems of meaning of seemingly familiar plant life—but these revealed limbs may leave more questions than they give answers. The Beach is a reminder that even universal feelings can appear more alien than familiar under close inspection.
"The album is seeped in sensual tension driven by pulsating rhythms, sweeping synths and lyrics that center on the human condition....Whitescarver’s croon brims with pain and passion while sleek instrumentals paint images of illicit happenings beneath neon club lights like a scene straight out of 80’s film 9 ½ Weeks. " - Ears To Feed
Label: Tom Press: Kip & Wells Direct: Jack
Amiture’s debut record, The Beach , is out March 19, 2021.
“Operator” by Amiture Directed by Hayley Garrigus
Directed by Jack Whitescarver and Anna Witenberg Edited by Jack Whitescarver Cinematography/Color- Cyrus Duff AC - Sabrina Kissack Starring and Written by Anna Witenberg Angel - Pansy Schulman Film Processing and scans: Metropolis Post Special thanks to handheld films
© 2016-2022 Dots Per Inch Music, LLC offering something real

a person who identifies and studies birds in their natural habitats
an amateur who engages in an activity without serious intentions and who pretends to have knowledge
a person who pursues an activity in their spare time for pleasure
someone who enjoys outdoor activities
a person trained to compete in sports
“gained valuable experience in
amateur theatricals”
not professional; not engaged in a profession or engaging in as a profession or for gain
not characteristic of or befitting a profession or one engaged in a profession
Alfred opened his wallet and pulled out the amateur card with a postage- stamp photograph.
By 1890 amateur scientists claimed to have found traces of Pleistocene Americans in New Jersey, Indiana, Ohio, and the suburbs of Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.
The belemnite, it turned out, had been discovered four years earlier by an amateur naturalist named Chaning Pearce, and the discovery had been fully reported at a meeting of the Geological Society.
They’d mastered the techniques of cell culture and simplified them to such a degree that, as one researcher put it, they’d “made it possible for even the rank amateur to grow a few cultures.”

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An amateur is a person who does something for enjoyment, not money, like an amateur who paints as a hobby but earns a living another way.
The adjective amateur often describes a pastime, like an amateur sports league that people join to get exercise and socialize together. Or it can have a negative meaning and describe something that's poorly done. If your guests leave your dinner table and stop for fast food on the way home, you may be ashamed of your amateur cooking skills. Amateur originated as a French word, meaning "lover of," not "expert."
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ar·ma·ture

| \ ˈär-mə-ˌchu̇r

, -chər , -ˌtyu̇r , -ˌtu̇r \

1

: an organ or structure (such as teeth or thorns) for offense or defe
Bare Up Skirt
Teen Cum Eaters
Goth Girl Nude

Amiture

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