Picture someone painting or playing music on a weekend purely because they love it, with no paycheck in sight. An 'amateur' is that person — doing the thing for the love of it, not for money.
From the word’s history
From French 'amateur' (lover of), from Latin 'amator' (lover), from 'amare' (to love) — literally 'one who loves' the activity, which is exactly the core: doing it out of love, not for pay.
來自法文 amateur（愛好者），源於拉丁文 amator（愛人、喜愛者），字根是 amare（愛）。字面就是「愛這件事的人」，正好對上核心：因為愛而做，不是為錢。
etymonline.com/word/amateur; Merriam-Webster
登入就可以看每一支怎麼連回核心畫面。
原始詞典資料6 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，摘錄並精簡格式，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
amateurnoun/ˈæ.mə.tə/
- 1
archaicA lover of something.
- he conducted extensive correspondence on wines with European suppliers, employing a wine vocabulary familiar to any modern amateur of wines.
- 2
A person attached to a particular pursuit, study, science, or art (such as music or painting), especially one who cultivates any study, interest, taste, or attachment without engaging in it professionally.
- The contest is only open to amateurs.
- You see, I'm not an official in any sense so I can't plead privilege and invoke the powers to back me. In the eyes of a jury I should be merely an interfering amateur—and there's such a thing as defamation.
- 3
Someone who is unqualified or insufficiently skillful.
- The entire thing was built by some amateurs with screwdrivers and plywood.
amateuradj/ˈæ.mə.tə/
- 1
Non-professional.
- 2
Created, done, or populated by amateurs or non-professionals.
- amateur sports
- 3
Showing a lack of professionalism, experience or talent.
- Duct tape is a sure sign of amateur workmanship.
- To put that into perspective, this celebrity wedding is officially way more secure than last year’s US operation to bomb Houthi targets in Yemen, in advance of which you might recall a journalist was added to the top-level group chat by the then national security adviser. So amateur. Taylor would never.
摘錄自 英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary，已精簡格式；依 CC BY-SA 4.0 授權使用，改動後的內容同樣以此授權提供。