Meaning & use
Wannabes
Last updated
Informally, people who aspire to be, or try to imitate, someone or something they admire, often without success.
See it in a sentence
The club was full of rock-star wannabes clutching guitars they barely knew how to play.
Critics dismissed the film as a cheap imitation made by amateur wannabes.
A note on using this word
"Wannabe" is a shortened, informal spelling of "want to be," first widely popularized in 1980s American slang and pop culture.
Words with a similar meaning
imitatorshopefuls
Choose a synonym to suit the sentence. Meanings can overlap without being identical.
Words with an opposite meaning
originalsveterans
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