noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   A movement in the arts in which the artist did not depict objective reality, but rather a subjective expression of their inner experiences. countable, uncountable
2. 2
   an art movement early in the 20th century; the artist's subjective expression of inner experiences was emphasized; an inner feeling was expressed through a distorted rendition of reality wordnet
3. 3
   A somewhat analogous genre in early 20th century music. countable, uncountable

Synonyms

All synonyms

abstractionismartcoloringdeformationdistortionexaggeration

Example

More examples

"Yanni showed a formidable command of expressionism."

Etymology

Borrowed from French expressionnisme, equivalent to expression + -ism.

Related phrases

Abstract Expressionismneo-expressionism

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