Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun One who is widely known and of great popular interest.
  • noun Fame or popular renown.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The condition of being celebrated; fame; renown; distinction: as, the celebrity of George Washington; the celebrity of Homer or of the Iliad.
  • noun A celebrated person or (very rarely) thing: as, a celebrity at the bar or in the church; what are the celebrities of this town?
  • noun Celebration.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun obsolete Celebration; solemnization.
  • noun The state or condition of being celebrated; fame; renown.
  • noun A person of distinction or renown; -- usually in the plural.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a widely known person
  • noun the state or quality of being widely honored and acclaimed

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English celebrite, fame, from Old French, from Latin celebritās, from celeber, celebr-, famous.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French célébrité.

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Examples

  • The term "celebrity memoir" has gotten such a bad name now, but there used to be a little bit of an art form to it.

    USATODAY.com News 2011

  • No one will care if a certain celebrity is pregnant or if someone is doing drugs.

    Archive 2008-03-01 Code Monkey 2008

  • No one will care if a certain celebrity is pregnant or if someone is doing drugs.

    Thoughts: The Death of Actors and Models Code Monkey 2008

  • Now, even in the best of times Celebrity Jeopardy is pushing it with the use of the term celebrity, but I must admit to an impure thrill at the thought of Ari Fleischer's return to television.

    angelwonks Gwenda 2004

  • COOPER: Suzanne, you mentioned the term celebrity for Bo Derek and the bachelors.

    CNN Transcript Apr 27, 2003 2003

  • Despite sharing their name with the term celebrity journalists apply to anyone who's ever been in television or film, the band Stars has carved out a large following.

    The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com The Huffington Post News Editors 2011

  • Despite sharing their name with the term celebrity journalists apply to anyone who's ever been in television or film, the band

    The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com The Huffington Post News Editors 2011

  • But every once in a while there comes along someone far more deserving of the title celebrity, who just happens to get started on the Internet.

    PlanetOut 2009

  • I am a big fan when a celebrity is able to poke fun at themselves.

    Top 10 Cameo Roles in Movies » Scene-Stealers 2010

  • But the shy aviator matters to "The Guest List" because his celebrity is a measure of "a Manhattan-centric culture's redirecting its admiration from wastrels like the Astors to the achieving parvenu."

    Reign of the Taste-Makers By Stefan Kanfer 2010

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