Word.ws English Dictionary

modernism

modernism noun: modern or contemporary ideas, thought, practices, etc.

Noun

modernism (countable and uncountable, plural modernisms)

  1. (uncountable) Modern or contemporary ideas, thought, practices, etc.
  2. (countable) Anything that is characteristic of modernity.
  3. Any of several styles of art, architecture, literature, philosophy, etc., that flourished in the 20th century.
    • Penrod is so referential as to be almost a work of postmodernism—assuming Tarkington could have imagined such a thing with modernism itself just beginning to steamroll over him.2004 May, Thomas Mallon, “Hoosiers”, in The Atlantic
  4. A religious movement in the early 20th century, condemned as heretical by Pope Pius X, which tried to reconcile Roman Catholic dogma with modern science and philosophy.

modernism meaning in Hindi, Urdu and Malayalam

modernism in Hindi

any of several styles of art, architecture, literature, philosophy, etc., that flourished in the 20th century
आधुनिकतावाद ādhuniktāvād

modernism in Urdu

جدیدیت, جدت پسندی

modernism in Malayalam

any of several styles of art, architecture, literature, philosophy, etc., that flourished in the 20th century
ആധുനികത ādhunikata

Examples of modernism in a sentence

  • The epistrophic part of the essay can be read as a philippic against modernism.
  • He draws from modernism and its malcontents: Morton Feldman, Olivier Messaien, Thelonious Monk.
  • Although Edwardianism was different from modernism, it was never the less radical.

All 16 example sentences with modernism

Forms of modernism

pluralmodernisms

Plural of modernism: modernisms

Origin of modernism

From modern + -ism.

Words formed from modernism

Questions about modernism

What does modernism mean?
Modernism means modern or contemporary ideas, thought, practices, etc.
What is modernism in Hindi?
Modernism in Hindi is आधुनिकतावाद (ādhuniktāvād). See Modernism meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is modernism?
Modernism is a noun.
What is the plural of modernism?
The plural of modernism is modernisms.

Words near modernism in the dictionary

  1. moderniser
  2. modernisers
  3. modernises
  4. modernish
  5. modernising
  6. modernism
  7. modernisms
  8. modernist
  9. modernist cooking
  10. modernist cuisine
  11. modernist cuisines

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: modernism (page history and authors); modernism (Urdu Wiktionary) (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-modernism.wav.

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