DILETTANTE, an Italian word for one who delights in the fine arts, especially in music and painting. Properly the word re fers to an "amateur" as opposed to a "professional" cultivation of the arts, but is often used in a depreciatory sense of one who is only a dabbler. The Dilettanti Society, founded in 1733-34, still exists in England. A history of the society, by Lionel Cust, was published in 1898.