Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A person who has special knowledge or experience; an expert.
Wiktionary
- n. A self-styled expert in a given field.
WordNet 3.0
- n. someone who is dazzlingly skilled in any field
Etymologies
- From Yiddish מבֿין (meyvn, "know-it-all"), from Hebrew מֵבִין (mevín, "one who understands, connoisseur, expert"). (Wiktionary)
- Yiddish meyvn, from Hebrew mēbîn, active participle of hēbîn, to understand, derived stem of bîn, to discern; see byn in Semitic roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“SAFIRE: Well, language maven, and maven, of course, is a Yiddish word for connoisseur.”
“The word maven Luntz is a sharp character, but he's more interested in "message development" than in searching for truth.”
“Rachael Ray, the ever-perky talk show host/” 30-Minute Meal” maven, is upset over rumors about her marriage being on the rocks.”
“Dan Neil/The Wall Street Journal Ferrari FF: Sort of cool, sort of not One of the more endearing acts of journalism I've seen was William Safire's occasional "On Language" mea culpa, a column in which the famed word maven would admit to errors and misjudgments—throwing himself on the pikes of the punctilious, as he might say.”
The Wall Street Journal: A Showroom of Regrets: What I Got Wrong in 2011
“A "maven" is a gatherer of information and impressions, and so is often the first to pick up on new or emerging trends.”
The Huffington Post: Gary Liberson, PhD: Networking for Innovation
“And he took what may have been a swipe at fellow word maven William Safire for putting the phrase "nattering nabobs of negativism" into the vice president's mouth.”
The Wall Street Journal: NBC News Correspondent Was Tart-Tongued Grammar Guru
“Since we set this one loose on Twitter -- with six-word maven Mary Elizabeth Williams immediately replying wit "From ABC to PYT to RIP." -- yesterday, we've had some great responses.”
“Thank goodness I have my very own style maven aka my sister.”
“Anonymous said ... maven, that is a good point about children and families vs. institutions.”
“And everybody has a different opinion and everybody is a so-called maven on politics all of a sudden.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘maven’.
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Sue's favorite words
panache, flair, pantaloons, periwinkle, pumpernickel, persnickety, cachet, coquette, élan, iris, ambrosia, keen and 99 more...
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Yiddishkeit
There are a few short lists of Yiddish words, but none appropriate to the glory of the language, and none that are open. Thought I'd start one, and would love contributions. I'm tagging as I go, an...
schmuck, nosh, chutzpah, shtick, kvetch, oy vey, oy gevalt, shvitz, shtik, shiksa, putz, mensch and 94 more...
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EN-HU - important words for a HU inte...
Words only (I left out the expressions) from Geza Kerenyi's EN-HU interpreters' dictionary. Most of them pose some difficulty when interpreted between HU and EN in either or both directions.
abalone, abrasive, abstractionist, abstruse, abysmal, academia, accessibility, accessible, acclimate, accolade, accompanist, achiever and 1469 more...
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architecture and design words
fancy words to use when describing architecture and design
beautility, bathos, ephemeral, wabi sabi, ethos, didactic, ascetic, ephemeral, non sequitur, veracity, acumen, maven and 22 more...
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Unwording
Outlawed words and books, like this.
samizdat, satanic verses, profanity, oriental, antilanguage, biddy, aviatrix, squaw, deaf-mute, border patrolman, cassandra, niggardly and 45 more...
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Dumbisms
Words and phrases I don't like. They are dumb.
re-look, good to go, reinvent the wheel, do what, ducks in a row, re-up, twofer, irregardless, repurpose, ballyhoo, bells and whistles, webinar and 55 more...
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web
maven, logolepsy, apperception, traduce, caldera, putative, lurid, avant-garde, teleology, heuristic, jugular, manducate and 13 more...
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Dead (or dying) English Words
Inspired by the an old New York Times article and the Dictionary of Dying Danish Words list here on Wordie.
chorine, terpsichore, motorcar, motoring, centigrade, maven, tautology, pleonasm, contrariwise, spatchcock, mascaron, miasma and 29 more...
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Words of the day
The list of Wordnik words of the day.
panurgic, chapfallen, billingsgate, latration, witticaster, slitheroo, rux, crotchet, mirliton, arenose, ruelle, jane-of-apes and 76 more...
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difficult words
ordure, tatterwallop, callipygian, odious, colophon, cynosure, hardener, emollience, valetudinarian, demonym, volage, polysemantic and 283 more...
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Twitter favorites
The new favourite words of people on Twitter.
A script searches Twitter for "X is my new favorite word" and adds it to this list.
See also:
unfathomably, glice, cuh, fab, ciggaty, doll, thuggin, oxymoronic, pineapple, succubutt, griming, cheeky and 3063 more... -
Praise
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ktrey's wordlist
Words that I like.
Many may be lexicographically impotent due to a lack of citations and definition. Hopefully I'll be able to rectify this eventually.velleity, dispositive, bloviate, bibulous, fungible, concupiscence, avuncular, carnaptious, thrawn, hypocoristic, diegesis, lagniappe and 928 more...
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sillygoose's Words
nefarious, waffle, dilettante, love, obstreperous, suggestible, fodder, plucky, trajectory, eclectic, juggernaut, demure and 115 more...
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summer words 2009
how many words can I make mine this summer?
largess, hoyden, catholic, fornicatress, quean, slattern, bildungsroman, sybaritic, descresent, nodus, frittle, callipygian and 529 more...
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word list!!!!
lagniappe
syzygy, bloviate, lagniappe, laconic, condign, umbrage, susurrus, thaumaturgy, capacious, capitulate, glower, repast and 179 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for maven.
grant_barrett This word was chosen as Wordnik word of the day. Nov 11, 2009
sgordonson Source language is Yiddish Jun 8, 2009
JSpeyrer an expert, yes; but a person who also shows a personal interest in
a subject and a liking for it May 17, 2009
garyth123 first came across this in connection with aficionados of apple compters mac mavens Dec 6, 2008
seanahan My experience with linguists is that they generally speak in a derogatory manner about prescriptivists. Language is constantly evolving, difficult to predict, and often difficult to understand. My understanding of the chapter in The Language Instinct is that he is directly criticizing prescriptivism in general, with the Mavens as the focal point of his derision. Jul 27, 2008
sionnach Pinker's use of the term is, in my view, unnecessarily dismissive, and somewhat polemic. In what I think of as a kind of "smear 'n sneer" attack, he paints all language mavens as rabid, reactionary prescriptivists, not to be taken seriously. Though I admire Pinker, and enjoy his writing on language, he does have a tendency to present the position of those who disagree with him in an exaggeratedly negative light. Because Pinker is hyper-articulate and writes with considerable wit, his distortions can be remarkably persuasive. But the reader should take care not to mistake amusing verbal pyrotechnics for reasoned argument.
In his book "The Tipping Point", Malcolm Gladwell made frequent use of the term maven, but in the context of Gladwell's book, it had generally positive connotations. Jul 27, 2008
seanahan Steven Pinker uses the term "The Language Mavens" to describe to newspaper columnists who declare themselves experts on language and stalwarts against change. Jul 27, 2008
widget A Yiddish word derived from the Hebrew מבין - one who understands Jul 24, 2008