Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use modernism in a sentence

16 example sentences · noun

Modernism means modern or contemporary ideas, thought, practices, etc. Example: “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.”

Examples of modernism by meaning

nounAny 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

More sentences with modernism

  • The epistrophic part of the essay can be read as a philippic against modernism.2024, Michał Mokrzan, Culture Figures: A Rhetorical Reading of Anthropology. From the entry epistrophic
  • He draws from modernism and its malcontents: Morton Feldman, Olivier Messaien, Thelonious Monk.2022 November 30, Giovanni Russonello, “Best Jazz Albums of 2022”, in The New York Times, →ISSN. From the entry danzón
  • Although Edwardianism was different from modernism, it was never the less radical.2008, C. Etherington-Wright, Gender, Professions and Discourse. From the entry Edwardianism
  • To postmodernists, modernism gave the world science, reason, western civilization, Marxism, Freudianism, and other totalisms.2004, Personal Epistemology: The Psychology of Beliefs, →ISBN, page 220. From the entry totalism
  • Modernism reconstructed the past and asserted a new identity.2008, C. Etherington-Wright, Gender, Professions and Discourse. From the entry Edwardianism
  • This remnant of modernism is perhaps the most cathectic concern and source of the sometimes intense criticism of zoos.2006, Stephen Spotte, Zoos in Postmodernism, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, page 143. From the entry cathectic
  • The clutterings of French-inspired modernism gave way to the single-purpose intensity of a new indigenous outlook on life.1992, John A. Crow, The Epic of Latin America. From the entry cluttering
  • There may be another argument here, if we had time to unpack it, about modernism and the rise of the middle classes.2013 September 20, Anne Enright, “A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing by Eimear McBride – review”, in The Guardian. From the entry unpack
  • What is suggestive about both positions, for present purposes, is that modernism and the avant-garde are understood as belonging to a common history of supersession.2013, Peter Brooker, “General Introduction: Modernity, Modernisms, Magazines”, in Peter Brooker, Sascha Bru, Andrew Thacker, Christian…. From the entry chicken or egg
  • On the winding road to Petropolis, they did not speak, not about modernism or the construction of houses or antique bird jails or fine how-do-you-dos.2010, Michael Sledge, The More I Owe You: A Novel, Counterpoint Press, →ISBN, page 78. From the entry how do you do
  • Modernism is literally transromantic: early Modernism emerges from Baudelaire's transformation of French Romanticism, and this transformation continues to influence writers, artists and critics.2006, Rosemary Lloyd, The Cambridge Companion to Baudelaire, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN. From the entry transromantic
  • She must either "Japonise" her modernism more thoroughly, or else understand all the associations that are linked, in the Occident, to certain objects.1928, Sherard Vines, Humours unreconciled: a tale of modern Japan, page 200. From the entry japonise
  • A manifestation of Russian modernism that comprised those who had “overcome” symbolism, acmeism represents a facet of 20th-century Russian literature without a direct predecessor in Europe.2013, Jonathan Stone, “Acmeism”, in Historical Dictionary of Russian Literature, Rowman & Littlefield, →ISBN, page 9. From the entry Acmeism
  • Modernism had been brought from the court of Hārūn ar-Rashīd by Ziryāb, the Persian singer who became an arbiter elegantiarum in the provincial capital of al-Andalus.2004, James T. Monroe, Hispano-Arabic Poetry, page 7. From the entry arbiter elegantiarum
  • In the past, when the author was studying, architects only employed a very restricted palette of colours: the white of modernism, black, a “friendly” shade of anthracite and light grey!2013, Sylvia Leydecker, Designing Interior Architecture, page 32. From the entry anthracite

Meaning of modernism

  1. noun Modern or contemporary ideas, thought, practices, etc.
  2. noun Anything that is characteristic of modernity.
  3. noun Any of several styles of art, architecture, literature, philosophy, etc., that flourished in the 20th century.

Full definition of modernism

Questions about modernism in a sentence

How do you use modernism in a sentence?
Modernism is used as a noun. For example: “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.”
What is a short sentence with modernism?
“Modernism reconstructed the past and asserted a new identity.”
What does modernism mean?
Modernism means modern or contemporary ideas, thought, practices, etc.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: modernism (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use modernism in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/modernism. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.