Someone who is devoted

Or Webster's more generic :. A person who or thing which does not perform well or as required; a person who does not live up to expectation. One of the definitions of the noun indicates a longterm aspect, the failure to adhere to a contract, so not momentary. In my experience, this usually implies the result was not successful; this meaning is reflected in the definition in The Urban Dictionary.

The phrase above with the letter "A" works well when used with an audience in the United States, since in many schools in the U. If you're writing for people in countries that do not use the letter-grade system A, B, C, etc.

People sometimes give an "E for effort," which means high marks to some people who went to schools where "E" was awarded for excellent performance but not to others. In John le Carre's novel 'A Perfect Spy' the term 'nevver-wozza' is frequently used the spelling may be a bit off, sorry, but a more correct spelling would be 'never-was-a'.

IMO this is a lovely bit of slang. It's a play on 'has-been', which is someone who was good at something in the past but is now unable to move on from those glory days. On the other hand a 'nevver'wozza' was never very good at anything no matter how much they tried or how fundamental the task was to their existence in the novel it is often used to describe race horses.

Similar but a non-distorted version of the answer by MattH. Someone who hasn't achieved anything in the course of their career as suggested in the quote by C.

Within the context of orchestral music and other organisations we have " rank-and-file ", which is someone who is ok - they can play the parts, but they lack the passion or talent to excel. It's the alternative to " virtuoso ", in the musical world. There's an Italian I think word for a rank and file musician, which I can't put my finger on at the moment, which might work well However, I would venture that someone who has devoted their lives to a practice would at least be able to perform at a serviceable level, even without much aptitude.

If that's not the case it's likely the person wasn't really as committed as they made themselves out to be in terms of practice. While "amateur" has 2 relevant meanings : 1 Someone who pursues a study or sport as a pastime [[ might be , he is very good at it , but it is not his profession ]] , 2 Someone who is unqualified or not skillful enough [[ the connotation or meaning required by EnglishStudent ]] , there is another word which has only the second negative meaning : "amateurish".

Although the dictionary definitions don't really express your meaning directly, I would still be inclined to call him a piker :. This is a negative word, with the implication in your case that they never took risks even while practicing , or really engaged in serious self-analysis, to really improve; they just went along doing more or less what they had always done to get by.

The other morning I told my husband that when it came to snoring, compared to him I was a piker. After pursuing something over my lifetime, to be unrewarded by even modest levels of accomplishment is to suffer an unrequited devotion. Look at Uncle, practised music all his life and still not very good at it: he is unrequited. I'm not sure if the goal is to shame him in his failure or to politely describe his lack of positive results for his efforts. If one desires to be more on the positive of things, it might be a good idea to employ the following expression:.

Look at Uncle, practised music all his life and is still not very good at it, yet he is a such a tenacious trier. Tenacious gives the meaning of strong-willed, resolute and persistent. A for the word trier , it gives us the following sense of positivity:.

If you say that someone is a trier, you approve of them because they try very hard at things that they do, although they are not often successful. Personally I would go with clueless cause it makes more sense when addressing a particular case. Sign up to join this community.

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Ask Question. Asked 4 years, 1 month ago. Active 4 years ago. Viewed 19k times. Improve this question. English Student. English Student English Student 7, 7 7 gold badges 28 28 silver badges 65 65 bronze badges. I can't see how you could say it in one word. I might incline to something like "He played the piano with less skill than resolve". One word is not mandatory WS2. I was looking for a descriptive phrase or idiom. DO use comments to ask for clarification, suggest changes, or offer short-lived information.

DO NOT use them for minor edits edit instead answers post an answer instead , praise or rebukes vote instead , discussion chat instead , or comments on site design or policy post at meta instead. A fairly good non offensive word would be mediocre. Mediocre is the most basic, 'bread and butter' description Mazura.

Unfortunately this adjective does not really reflect the years of effort that went into practising that skill, I think. Show 13 more comments. Active Oldest Votes. Improve this answer. Stephen Stephen 5 5 silver badges 5 5 bronze badges. Extremely apt if rather uncommon -- thanks for introducing me to this term Stephen! Add a comment. Andrea Lazzarotto 9 9 bronze badges. LindaCamillo LindaCamillo 1, 11 11 silver badges 14 14 bronze badges. I didn't mean it to be sad -- he was a humble person and was much better at music than he let on.

Thank you EnglishStudent! Show 5 more comments. Very interesting reference, and very appropriate as well -- after reading Wikipedia I should also admire the lady's extraordinary determination to live her dream career -- moreover, the reference seems obscure enough to the modern lay person that if used as a criticism the recipient will hopefully not understand the significance: thanks for educating me chrylis!

A life time practising and he's just a flop. Oxford Definition : Informal of a performer or show be completely unsuccessful; fail totally.

Nigel J Nigel J This is the best answer. Frustrated can be mistaken for emotion, Manque and Florence Foster Jenkins are likely to mean nothing to most people, talentless has no connotation of it being a career or over time. Flop has the connotation of long-term failure in the context of a career.

Is flop ever used to indicate a person though? I've only seen it used for performances, releases and ventures. Things, not people. Mast The Oxford definition above includes the word 'performer'. I have edited to make that clearer. Ah, not going to argue with the Oxford, thanks for clearing that up. AffableAmbler AffableAmbler 1, 5 5 silver badges 20 20 bronze badges. I upvotes. That puts me in mind of this rather commonly heard expression: quora.

Many people do things who are ungifted, adequate for common use playing at open-mic night, local club, etc though they are not talentless. A sports player to makes it through college on a scholarship may be talented, yet ungifted and never make it to the pros.

May I suggest the following, would-be the term by itself will not imply that the person has struggled to achieve their heart's desire but it will suggest they are trying and they have as yet to reach that pinnacle. Yes indeed Mari-lou A -- 'aspiring' is more ironic than a proper description of the situation. One of the best suggestions here was the one by a perennial journeyman -- I also heard somewhere 'always an apprentice. How about this? Headblender Headblender 1, 6 6 silver badges 12 12 bronze badges.

The early scientists were 'amateurs', they had the leisure and resources to pursue pure science rather than being forced to make a living by getting their hands dirty with engineering! And for a long time amateur sportsmen were considered superior, morally and even sometimes in practice - the 'Gentlemen' often beat the 'Players' at cricket.

Maybe make your attitude to 'amateur' clear. My suggestion : "Despite all his practice, he is still amateurish. His most devoted fans think of Morrissey as a sort of god.

The band's latest album is very poor although devoted fans might enjoy it. He described his client as a devoted family man. Related word devotedly. Translations of devoted in Chinese Traditional. See more. Need a translator? Translator tool. What is the pronunciation of devoted? Browse Devonian. Test your vocabulary with our fun image quizzes. Image credits. Word of the Day sweetheart. Blog Outsets and onsets!

New Word List Word List. Save This Word! See synonyms for devoted on Thesaurus. We could talk until we're blue in the face about this quiz on words for the color "blue," but we think you should take the quiz and find out if you're a whiz at these colorful terms. Words related to devoted ardent , caring , concerned , dear , dedicated , devout , doting , dutiful , faithful , loving , staunch , steadfast , thoughtful , true , zealous , consecrated , adherent , affectionate , constant , crazy about.

How to use devoted in a sentence Then the regular season begins April 1, when they host the New York Mets, making the meantime devoted to solidifying the roster, evaluating top prospects and staying healthy.

Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.