Pastiche
noun, verb ·Moderate ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 A work of art, drama, literature, music, or architecture that imitates the work of a previous artist, usually in a positive or neutral way. countable, uncountable
"He argued that the failure of the future was constitutive of a postmodern cultural scene which, as he correctly prophesied, would become dominated by pastiche and revivalism."
- 2 a work of art that imitates the style of some previous work wordnet
- 3 A musical medley, typically quoting other works. countable, uncountable
- 4 a musical composition consisting of a series of songs or other musical pieces from various sources wordnet
- 5 An incongruous mixture; a hodgepodge. countable, uncountable
"This supposed research paper is a pastiche of passages from unrelated sources."
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- 6 A postmodern playwriting technique that fuses a variety of styles, genres, and story lines to create a new form. uncountable
- 1 To create or compose in a mixture of styles.
"That the genetic code of the platypus proved to be as bizarrely pastiched as its anatomy enhanced the popular appeal of the report, published in the journal Nature."
Example
More examples"Only an ardent fan could create such a faithful pastiche of the artist's works."
Etymology
Via French pastiche, from Italian pasticcio (“pie, something blended”), from Vulgar Latin *pastīcius, from Late Latin pasta (“dough, pastry cake, paste”), from Ancient Greek παστά (pastá, “barley porridge”), from παστός (pastós, “sprinkled with salt”). Doublet of pasticcio.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.