Amateur Definition & Meaning

As a noun, it denotes a person involved in an activity for personal satisfaction rather than monetary gain. The term “amateur” is versatile, functioning as a noun and an adjective. As an adjective, it describes actions or outputs that are unpolished or lacking professional quality, such as “an amateur effort.” This use is sometimes disparaging, as in, “The work was criticized as amateur.” For example, “She is an amateur painter who creates art for enjoyment.” Radio amateurs have access to frequency allocations throughout the RF spectrum, usually allowing choice of an effective frequency for communications across a local, regional, or worldwide path. Various partial lists of famous people who hold or held amateur radio call signs have been compiled and published. In addition, many countries have national amateur radio societies which encourage newcomers and work with government communications regulation authorities for the benefit of all radio amateurs. A reciprocal licensing agreement between two countries allows licensed amateur radio operators from one country to operate stations in the other without obtaining a new licence. A few small countries may not have a national licensing process and may instead require prospective amateur radio operators to take the licensing examinations of a foreign country. In 2011 the American Radio Relay League (the U.S. national society) estimated that about 2 million people worldwide were active in amateur radio. Fast-scan amateur television (ATV) adapts consumer video equipment to transmit images. EchoLink and the Internet Radio Linking Project link repeaters and operators worldwide. Later modes including PSK31 and FT8 allow efficient low-signal communication on shortwave bands. FM offers high audio quality, SSB is efficient for long-distance use, and AM continues among users of vintage amateur radio equipment. The principal voice modes are frequency modulation (FM), single sideband (SSB), and amplitude modulation (AM). In some countries, the call sign assigned to the station must always be used, whereas in other countries, the call sign of either the operator or the station may be used. An amateur radio operator uses a call sign on the air to legally identify the operator or station. In North America, established amateurs who help newcomers are often referred to as “Elmers”, as coined by Rodney Newkirk (W9BRD), within the ham community. Some countries have bilateral or multilateral agreements that harmonise conditions, while others have no reciprocal arrangements. Currently, only Yemen and North Korea do not issue amateur radio licenses to their citizens. Competitive activities include contests to contact as many stations as possible in a set period, and operating awards such as Summits on the Air, Worked All States, and Jamboree on the Air. Operators take part in contests, provide emergency service, build and modify equipment, and use transmission modes ranging from traditional Morse code to modern digital protocols. The amateur radio community subsequently reclaimed the word as a label of pride, and by the mid-20th century it had lost its pejorative meaning. The use of ham to mean amateurish or unskilled survives to this day in another discipline— i.e. ham actor. This term continued to be used after the invention of radio and the subsequent proliferation of amateur experimentation with wireless telegraphy; among both land-based and sea-based professional radio telegraphers, ham amateurs were considered a nuisance. So now you know how to spell the word ‘amateur,’ but this doesn’t mean you know how to spell it. Firstly, did you know that the word ‘amateur’ is French? Now, why not see if you can come up with your own examples? Now for some example sentences using the word in its second sense – the derogatory term. Australian cricketers touring England were considered amateurs and given the title “Mr” in newspaper reports. At some grounds amateurs and professionals had separate dressing rooms and entered the playing arena through separate gates. Newspaper reports often prefaced amateurs' names with “Mr” while professionals were referred to by surname, or sometimes surname and initials. Professionals were often expected to address amateurs, at least to their faces, as “Mister” or “Sir” whereas the amateurs often referred to professionals by their surnames. M.J.K. Smith was a well-salaried secretary – and an amateur captain – of Warwickshire County Cricket Club. Players who had played in other professional leagues – such as the World Hockey Association – were allowed to play. Allowing pay in some sports but not others could result in the violation of U.S. laws such as Title IX. Also, most sports other than football and men's basketball do not generate significant revenue for any school (and such teams are often essentially funded by football, basketball, and donations), so it may not be possible to pay athletes in all sports. Since professionalism has been allowed in rugby union the switches have started to come the opposite way. Rugby union also had a more affluent reputation, although there are areas – notably in South Wales and in certain English cities such as Gloucester – with a strong working-class rugby union tradition. Rugby union – which remained amateur – was predominant in the rest of England, as well as in Wales and Scotland. These comprehensive and enduring sanctions, combined with the very localised nature of most rugby competition, meant that most northern clubs had little practical alternative but to affiliate with the NRFU in the first few years of its existence. Starting from the 2016 Summer Olympics, professionals were allowed to compete in boxing, though amateur fight rules are still used for the tournament. Olympic regulations regarding amateur status of athletes were eventually abandoned in the 1990s with the exception of wrestling, where the amateur fight rules are used because professional wrestling is largely staged with predetermined outcomes. Canadian hockey official Alan Eagleson stated that the rule was only applied to the NHL and that professionally contracted players in European leagues were still considered amateur s. Players who had played in other professional leagues—such as the World Hockey Association—were allowed to play. The IOC held an emergency meeting that ruled NHL-contracted players were eligible, as long as they had not played in any NHL games. The IOC had adopted a rule that made any player who had signed an NHL contract but played less than ten games in the league eligible. Once approved and trained, these amateurs also operate on US government military frequencies to provide contingency communications and morale message traffic support to the military services. National communications regulators have some liberty to restrict access to these bandplan frequencies or to award additional allocations as long as radio services in other countries do not suffer interference. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) governs the allocation of communications frequencies worldwide, with participation by each nation's communications regulation authority. Certain countries permit amateur radio licence holders to hold a Notice of Variation that allows higher power to be used than normally allowed for certain specific purposes. In most countries, an amateur radio license grants permission to the license holder to own, modify, and operate equipment that is not certified by a governmental regulatory agency. The shortwave bands, or HF, are suitable for worldwide communication, and the VHF and UHF bands normally provide local or regional communication, while the microwave bands have enough space, or bandwidth, for amateur television transmissions and high-speed computer networks. Rugby has provided one of the most visible and lasting examples of the tension between amateurism and professionalism during the development of nationally organised sports in Britain in the late-19th century. The difference between the teams of masters and other teams was that the first competed at the all-Union level and was considered non-amateur, while those at the republican level were considered to be amateur. In 1936 the government agency for sports adopted a decision to form competitions for “teams of [football] masters”, while at the republican level there were separate competitions among teams from factories and government agencies—players were officially on the payrolls of those institutions. Today, the most prominent English football clubs that are not professional are semi-professional (paying part-time players more than the old maximum for top professionals). The distinction is made between amateur sporting participants and professional sporting participants, who are paid for the time they spend competing and training. I thought about asking Ariana to take my picture, but I didn’t want to seem like an amateur. Another player who has reclassified from the same tournament is Huntington Beach pitcher Jared Grindlinger, who will join the class of 2026, making himself available for this summer’s MLB amateur draft. The WNO formed during the Second World War, with 60 amateur singers from across south Wales including miners, teachers, railway workers and even a butcher coming together. Heather Salt, an amateur fossil hunter from Solihull near Birmingham, said she travelled down to Lyme Regis in hopes of finding something for her own collection. With the rise of Web 2.0 ventures and amateur pornography, websites mimicking the YouTube platform of user-generated content and video sharing have become highly popular. No, “amateur” can be neutral or positive when emphasizing enthusiasm or love for an activity, though it may be critical in some contexts. An “amateur” is a person who engages in an activity out of passion rather than for financial gain or professional status. Understanding synonyms of “amateur” expands your vocabulary and allows for nuanced expressions. Thus, the more students who participate in school sports, the more students who will find themselves balanced and successful adults later in life. Physical activity has been proven to improve mood and decrease both stress and anxiety. This affects low-income families (those who earn less than $60,000 per year) and their ability to participate in the sports. Studies have shown that the more physical activity one participates in as a child, the happier and more stable that person will be as an adult. The term “Pay-to-Play” means that students and their parents must pay a flat fee to participate, and that fee often leaves out the costs of uniforms, transportation, and other team fees. Sports teams commonly exist at the high school level; those who participate, commonly referred to as student athletes, do so during their course of study. The examples and perspective in this section deal primarily with the United States and do not represent a worldwide view of the subject. Two sports, the team sport of disc ultimate and disc golf are very popular worldwide and are now being played semi professionally. As numbers of young people became alienated from social norms, they resisted and looked for alternative recreational activities, including that of throwing a Frisbee.