[f. as prec. + -SHIP.] The quality or character of an amateur; a. of being fond of having a liking for, something; b. of dabbling in matters for which one has no professional training, dilettantism.
1815. Taunton Courier, 19 Oct., 2/1. In the Parisian theatres the box for royalty is kept dressed, and unmingled with the receptacles for inferior amateurship.
1827. Blackw. Mag., XXII. Aug., 191/2. The literary man [in Italy] is a copyist of France, or an obscure plunderer of the dead—a frivolous academician, or a scribbler of such verses as live in coteries and the hot-houses of amateurship, but perish on the first exposure to the free blasts of public opinion.
1834. De Quincey, Caesars, Wks. 1862, IX. 106. The cool and cowardly spirit of amateurship in which the Roman … sat looking down upon the bravest of men … mangling each other for his recreation.
1834. Miss Edgeworth, Helen, II. 2. Horace [thinking] most of himself and his amateurship.
1875. Hamerton, Intell. Life, III. v. 100. Napoleon III. indulged in another and more dangerous kind of amateurship. He had a taste for amateur generalship.
