Wannabe
//ˈwɒnəbi// noun, slang
noun, slang ·Moderate ·High school level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 Someone who wishes to be someone or do something, but lacks the qualifications or talent; an overeager amateur; an aspirant. attributive, derogatory, informal, often
"Hollywood's restaurants are full of wannabe actors waiting to be discovered."
- 2 an ambitious and aspiring young person wordnet
- 3 Someone who wishes to be part of, or to assimilate to, a majority group of which they are not a member. derogatory, informal
"Bigger, mongrelly and black, he was clearly a Doberman wannabe."
Example
More examples"Ziri barged into Rima's room, dressed like a wannabe model."
Etymology
Written form of a reduction of want to be, analysable as wanna + be. Wannabe can be considered a conversion, category change, or functional shift. While occasionally appearing in print, usually as a less reduced phrase, the popularity of the word took off in the mid-1980s following the Madonna wannabe fashion trend: “wannabe”, in Google Books Ngram Viewer.
Related phrases
More for "wannabe"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.