Gourmand and Gourmet (French)

The gourmand is one whose chief pleasure is eating; but a gourmet is a connoisseur of food and wines. In England the difference is this: a gourmand regards quantity more than quality, a gourmet quality more than quantity. (Welsh, gor, excess; gorm, a fulness; gourmod, too much; gormant; etc.) (See Apicius.)

“In former times [in France] gourmand meant a judge of eating, and gourmet a judge of wine … Gourmet is now universally understood to refer to eating, and not to drinking.”—Hamerton: French and English, part v. chap. iv. p. 249.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.