wannabe
nounEtymology
Written form of a reduction of want to be, analyzable as wanna + be. Wannabe can be considered a conversion, category change, or functional shift. While occasionally appearing in print, usually as a less reduced phrase, the popularity of the word took off in the mid-1980s following the Madonna wannabe fashion trend: “wannabe”, in Google Books Ngram Viewer.
Definitions
Someone who wishes to be someone or do something, but lacks the qualifications or talent
Someone who wishes to be someone or do something, but lacks the qualifications or talent; an overeager amateur; an aspirant.
- Hollywood's restaurants are full of wannabe actors waiting to be discovered.
- Most of the people Hiro knows are will-bes or wannabes.
Someone who wishes to be part of, or to assimilate to, a majority group of which they are…
Someone who wishes to be part of, or to assimilate to, a majority group of which they are not a member.
- Bigger, mongrelly and black, he was clearly a Doberman wannabe.
The neighborhood
Derived
Vish — recursive loop
No curated loop yet for wannabe. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.
sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA