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Webster 1913 Edition


Mannerism

Man′ner-ism

,
Noun.
[Cf. F.
maniérisme
.]
1.
Adherence to a peculiar style or manner; a characteristic mode of action, bearing, behavior, or treatment of others.
2.
Adherence to a peculiar style or manner carried to excess, especially in literature or art.
Mannerism
is pardonable,and is sometimes even agreeable, when the manner, though vicious, is natural . . . . But a
mannerism
which does not sit easy on the mannerist, which has been adopted on principle, and which can be sustained only by constant effort, is always offensive.
Macaulay.

Webster 1828 Edition


Mannerism

MAN'NERISM

,
Noun.
Adherence to the same manner; uniformity of manner.

Definition 2024


Mannerism

Mannerism

See also: mannerism

English

Noun

Mannerism (uncountable)

  1. (art) A style of art developed at the end of the High Renaissance, characterized by the deliberate distortion and exaggeration of perspective and especially the elongation of figures.

Related terms

Translations

mannerism

mannerism

See also: Mannerism

English

Noun

mannerism (plural mannerisms)

  1. A group of verbal or other unconscious habitual behaviors peculiar to an individual.
    • 1898, Winston Churchill, chapter 1, in The Celebrity:
      In the old days, to my commonplace and unobserving mind, he gave no evidences of genius whatsoever. He never read me any of his manuscripts, [], and therefore my lack of detection of his promise may in some degree be pardoned. But he had then none of the oddities and mannerisms which I hold to be inseparable from genius, and which struck my attention in after days when I came in contact with the Celebrity.
  2. Exaggerated or effected style in art, speech, or other behavior.
Translations
References
  • APA Dictionary of Psychology, 2007

Etymology 2

From Italian manierismo, from maniera, coined by L. Lanzi at the end of the XVIII century.

Alternative forms

Noun

mannerism (plural mannerisms)

  1. (art, literature) In literature, an ostentatious and unnatural style of the second half of the sixteenth century. In the contemporary criticism, described as a negation of the classicist equilibrium, pre-Baroque, and deforming expressiveness.
  2. (art, literature) In fine art, a style that is inspired by previous models, aiming to reproduce subjects in an expressive language.