Word.ws English Dictionary

chromoclasm

chromoclasm noun: the elimination or reduction of colorfulness for religious reasons.

Noun

chromoclasm (uncountable)

  1. The elimination or reduction of colorfulness for religious reasons.
    • The preference for sombre, dark clothing does not only reflect "bourgeois" values, but also what Pastoreau characterises as the "chromoclasm" or "war against colour" being an important dimension in the new Christian morals of Protestantism - in fact, Pastoureau actually links this "chromoclasm"...2006, Eirik Frisfold Hanssen, Early Discourses on Colour and Cinema
    • There is no clear evidence that the polychromy of altarpieces was at that stage wilfully removed or overpainted, which would suggest chromoclasm, a term coined by Michel Pastoureau.2014, Hannelore Hägele, The Eye and the Beholder, page 75

Origin of chromoclasm

Coined by Michel Pastoureau as Blend of chroma + iconoclasm

Questions about chromoclasm

What does chromoclasm mean?
Chromoclasm means the elimination or reduction of colorfulness for religious reasons.
What part of speech is chromoclasm?
Chromoclasm is a noun.

Words near chromoclasm in the dictionary

  1. chromocenters
  2. chromocentre
  3. chromocentres
  4. chromocentric
  5. chromochalcographic
  6. chromoclasm
  7. chromocollographic
  8. chromocollotype
  9. chromocollotypes
  10. chromocollotypy
  11. chromocratic

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: chromoclasm (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.

Last updated:

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