Eclecticism

noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The quality of being eclectic. countable, uncountable

    "In those days she had admired his pluralistic openness of mind, and struggled, in her kitchen, towards a parallel eclecticism, learning to cook the dosas and uttapams of South India as well as the soft meatballs of Kashmir."

  2. 2
    making decisions on the basis of what seems best instead of following some single doctrine or style wordnet
  3. 3
    The quality of being eclectic.; An approach to thought that draws upon multiple theories. countable, uncountable
  4. 4
    The quality of being eclectic.; Any form of art that borrows from multiple other styles. countable, uncountable
  5. 5
    The selection of diverse witnesses to a text.

Synonyms

All synonyms
admixtureamalgamationatomismchiropracticcombinationcomposition

Example

More examples

"In those days she had admired his pluralistic openness of mind, and struggled, in her kitchen, towards a parallel eclecticism, learning to cook the dosas and uttapams of South India as well as the soft meatballs of Kashmir."

Etymology

From eclectic + -ism.

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