wannabe
Plural: wannabes
Noun
- an ambitious and aspiring young person
- "the audience was full of Madonna wannabes"
- Someone who wishes to be someone or do something, but lacks the qualifications or talent; an overeager amateur; an aspirant.
- Someone who wishes to be part of, or to assimilate to, a majority group of which they are not a member.
Examples
- Hollywood's restaurants are full of wannabe actors waiting to be discovered.
Origin / Etymology
Written form of a reduction of want to be, analysable 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 at the Google Books Ngram Viewer.
Scrabble Score: 12
wannabe: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Wordwannabe: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
wannabe: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary
Words With Friends Score: 15
wannabe: valid Words With Friends Word