Paparazzo

//ˌpɑ.pəˈɹɑ.tsoʊ// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A freelance photographer who sells photographs of celebrities to the media, especially one who pursues celebrities and attempts to obtain candid photographs.

    "That man with the camera over there is a paparazzo."

  2. 2
    a freelance photographer who pursues celebrities trying to take candid photographs of them to sell to newspapers or magazines wordnet

Example

More examples

"Italy is the country where the business of selling snatched pictures of the famous began and gave the world the word "paparazzo"."

Etymology

Borrowed from Italian paparazzo, from the name of Coriolano Paparazzo, a character in Federico Fellini's La dolce vita.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.