pronunc at modern +ˌizəm noun
( -s )
Etymology: modern (I) + -ism
1.
a. : a practice, usage, or expression peculiar to or characteristic of modern times
there is not a house in Warsaw that is not lousy — to use a modernism — with secret passages — Gerald Kelly
b. : a way of living or thinking characteristic of modern times
opposed to electricity in homes as a concession to modernism — G.P.Musselman
2.
a. often capitalized : a movement in Protestant Christianity originating in the latter half of the 19th century and continuing to the present that seeks to establish the meaning and validity of the Christian faith in relation to present human experience and to reconcile and unify traditional theological concepts with the requirements of modern knowledge — compare liberalism 2a
b. usually capitalized , Anglicanism : the position that all knowledge by which religion can be affected necessarily reaffirms the fundamental truths of Christianity but necessitates their official restatement by the Church in the language relevant to the intellectual conditions of the age
c. often capitalized , Roman Catholicism : a system of interpretation of Christian doctrine developed at the end of the 19th century and condemned by Pope Pius X in 1907 that denied the objective truth of revelation and the whole supernatural world and maintained that the only vital element in any religion and Catholicism in particular was its power to preserve and communicate to others the best religious experiences of the race
3. : the philosophy and practices of modern art ; especially : a self-conscious and deliberate break with the past and a search for new forms of expression in any of the arts
an outraged press and public pounced on it as the very model of loathsome modernism — A.L.Chanin