(n.) One well versed in any subject; a skillful or knowing person; a critical judge of any art, particulary of one of the fine arts.
Example Sentences:
(1) Equipment Let's be honest: good coffee depends heavily on equipment, which is why so many connoisseurs generally prefer to go out to a cafe with huge, shiny professional machines and baristas who have studied their craft in Milan and Melbourne, while their own over-complicated, underpowered espresso-makers gather dust in the kitchen.
(2) "It was part of his religion of nothing but the best – not for the elitist connoisseur but nothing but the best for the whole populace."
(3) Even connoisseurs of virtual rage had seen nothing like this since hundreds of online readers monstered a Guardian gap-year blog by a naive, teenaged student, Max Gogarty : a "tsunami of hate", his father called it.
(4) (A connoisseur, he also envies Apple stores where, as he put it, the cash register follows the customer.)
(5) The connoisseurs have assured me that the quality equals the best European microbreweries.
(6) That word "connoisseur" suggests grand authorities laying down the law, yet Penny argues that the connoisseur's eye can make great paintings live.
(7) Technically, on his school record, he's one of the people Grayling would class as "no great connoisseur", and yet his easy use of a whole range of legal terms suggested quite an advanced understanding of the process.
(8) But the county is not a destination stop for connoisseurs of political animus.
(9) Photograph: Alamy If you aren’t put off by a high density of boutique moustaches and pedantic coffee connoisseurs, Stoneybatter is a worthwhile deviation from Temple Bar, Grafton Street and the other well-trodden tourist zones.
(10) O’Farrell told the commission that he was no “wine connoisseur” but that he was certain he would have remembered receiving the bottle.
(11) Connoisseurs of British indecision will greet Sir Howard Davies's announcement on Tuesday as an all-time, blue-chip, 24-carat masterpiece of the genre.
(12) (As any Bond connoisseur will know, Spectre is the toweringly evil Special Executive for counter-intelligence, terrorism, revenge and extortion, run on a freelance basis by kitten stroking Ernst Stavro Blofeld, which first popped up in the Thunderball novel in 1961.)
(13) "Our politicians are heroes," joked Edmund Cocquyt, a Flemish connoisseur of bars who is making an inventory of every pub in Flanders.
(14) Connoisseurs of accountability may be intrigued to note that those who pay the piper are most able to call the tunes when they are within earshot, like voters to MPs.
(15) We can never know, but it sure seems like only a handful of connoisseurs read through them.
(16) Assembled with guidance from beer writer Zac Avery, the Attic's list of US, German and UK beers (from breweries such as Bristol's Arbor, Kernel, Hardknott, Magic Rock, Thornbridge) will bring a tear of joy to the eye of any craft beer connoisseur.
(17) Historically, proto-hipsters have been connoisseurs – people who deviate from the norm.
(18) Billroth who laid the foundation of modern abdominal surgery by performing his pioneer operations was also an excellent musician and connoisseur of the arts.
(19) In the face of daily threats of suicide and self-harm, the guards struggle as amateur psychologists and social workers become connoisseurs of despair.
(20) It will be a fight for connoisseurs of tack, of which there is no shortage at any given time.
Lapidary
Definition:
(n.) An artificer who cuts, polishes, and engraves precious stones; hence, a dealer in precious stones.
(n.) A virtuoso skilled in gems or precious stones; a connoisseur of lapidary work.
(a.) Of or pertaining to the art of cutting stones, or engraving on stones, either gems or monuments; as, lapidary ornamentation.
(a.) Of or pertaining to monumental inscriptions; as, lapidary adulation.
Example Sentences:
(1) Studies have been made on thermal regulation in the nests of families of the honey bee Apis mellifera, wasp Dolihovespula silvestris and bumblebees Bombus terrestris, B. agrorum and B. lapidaris during their maximum development.
(2) Earlier this week Kakutani's review of the novel – Franzen's first since his 2001 hit The Corrections – praised its "visceral and lapidary" prose, calling the author "as adept at adolescent comedy ... as he is at grown-up tragedy" and applauding "his ability to throw open a big, Updikean picture window on American middle-class life".
(3) In contrast, his recently installed ceiling at the Salle des Bronzes in the Louvre offers a more serene vision of the classical tradition, with its lapidary inscriptions alluding to ancient Greek sculptors set against an intense blue background.
(4) In five of the cases, exposure was in small and poorly regulated lapidaries without specific dust control measures.
(5) The sixth was detected during the course of a health and hygiene survey (including dust sampling) that was conducted in one of two lapidaries still operating in our area.
(6) The opening lines of his study are typical of his lapidary style: "Starvation is the characteristic of some people not having enough food to eat.
(7) But for a while he spoke only in lapidary epigrams.
(8) Picoult also criticised Kakutani's use of the word "lapidary".
(9) They had been employed as stone sculptors in lapidaries where they processed tiger's-eye, rose quartz, amethyst, quartz crystal, and a variety of other locally occurring semiprecious stones.