person of refined taste; aesthete; tea ceremony master
Refers to someone deeply versed in traditional Japanese arts, especially tea ceremony, and possessing cultivated aesthetic sensibilities. Often used in historical or cultural contexts.
He is known as a tea ceremony master with refined taste.
At the gathering of aesthetes, conversation about antiques blossomed.
In classical literature, the word 数寄者 can refer to a lecherous man.
好き者 is the more common and direct term for a lecher or a person with strong (often amorous) desires, while 数寄者 is a homophonous but distinct word emphasizing aesthetic refinement, or an archaic euphemism for the same lecherous meaning.
Standard kanji form for a person of refined aesthetic tastes, especially in tea ceremony contexts.
Variant kanji form; 数奇 can also imply a life of misfortune, but here it is used in the sense of aesthetic refinement.
From 数寄 (suki, 'refined taste, aesthetic pursuit') + 者 (sha, 'person'). The reading すきしゃ is a specialized term distinct from 好き者 (sukimono). The archaic sense of 'lecher' likely arose from a euphemistic use of the same characters, influenced by the overlapping meaning of 好き (suki) as 'fondness' or 'desire'.