Definition of "Thespian"

In his way Carlyle was as much of a Thespian as Garrick or Kemble, Booth or Jeferson.

1903, Adrian H[offman] Joline, The Diversions of a Book-Lover, New York, N.Y., London: Harper & Brothers, page 170

Now, I don’t think you’ve met Melissa Wayne, a fellow Thespian.

1990, Pat Booth, Malibu, New York, N.Y.: Ballantine Books, page 156

The courtyard’s empty and the Clients are inside the castle making pigs of themselves while watching a troupe of Thespians bait an animatronic bear.

1995 April, George Saunders, “Bounty”, in Harper’s Magazine, volume 290, number 1739

Went to that magnificent Temple of Thalia, the New Olympic, and saw the bewitchingest Pauline, in the person of Winifred Emery, that ever I saw in the shammiest, stagiest, tawdriest, tinsellest, transparentest, most diaphanously theatrical comedy I ever saw in the absolute period of my Thespian existence.

1890 December 24, “Judy’s Diary”, in Judy: The London Serio-comic Journal, volume 46, London: [s.n.], page 306, column 2

He stopped, and smiled, his blond hair, male-model good looks, and his ponytail giving away his Thespian dreams.

1990, Pat Booth, Malibu, New York, N.Y.: Ballantine Books, page 113

“A stunning clotheshorse upon whom no discernible Thespian demands were made,” wrote Jack Gould, the television critic for The New York Times.

2019 February 18, “Lee Radziwill, Former Princess and Sister of a First Lady, Is Dead at 85”, in The New York Times‎, section B, page 8