Word.ws English Dictionary

atonalism

atonalism noun: the school of atonal musical composition.

Noun

atonalism (usually uncountable, plural atonalisms)

  1. (usually) The school of atonal musical composition
    • No matter how melodramatic the story behind the music might be, most audiences won't buy atonalism; Arnold Schoenberg could have been devoured by escaped circus tigers while he was finishing the Variations for Orchestra and it would still get booed off the stage.1998 February 27, Lee Sandlin, “Over Powered”, in Chicago Reader
    • As a young composer, he wandered for years in the desert of atonalism and then, following the example of John Cage, he detoured through the wilderness of music based on an aesthetic of randomness and anarchy.2008 October 8, Charles Mcgrath, “Musical Odyssey: Circus Marches as a Boy, Grand, Topical Operas as a Man”, in New York Times

Forms of atonalism

pluralatonalisms

Origin of atonalism

From atonal + -ism.

Questions about atonalism

What does atonalism mean?
Atonalism means the school of atonal musical composition.
What part of speech is atonalism?
Atonalism is a noun.
What is the plural of atonalism?
The plural of atonalism is atonalisms.

Words near atonalism in the dictionary

  1. atomweights
  2. atomy
  3. Aton
  4. atonable
  5. atonal
  6. atonalism
  7. atonalisms
  8. atonalist
  9. atonalistic
  10. atonalists
  11. atonalities

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: atonalism (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “atonalism.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/atonalism. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.