Artspeak

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The specialist vocabulary and language associated with art and artists, especially when seen as complicated or pretentious. derogatory, often, uncountable

    "Mr. Quinn[…] was uptown exploring the new $26 million, 40,000 square foot museum addition because he takes students to museums as part of a course he teaches in New York on what to say about paintings—artspeak."

Example

More examples

"Mr. Quinn[…] was uptown exploring the new $26 million, 40,000 square foot museum addition because he takes students to museums as part of a course he teaches in New York on what to say about paintings—artspeak."

Etymology

From art + -speak.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.