avant-garde
Americannoun
-
avant-gardes
plural
adjective
-
of or relating to the experimental treatment of artistic, musical, or literary material.
-
belonging to the avant-garde.
an avant-garde composer.
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unorthodox or daring; radical.
To regain public trust in the news media, the organization took the avant-garde approach of including the public in the production of news.
noun
adjective
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of such artists, etc, their ideas, or techniques
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radical; daring
Usage
What does avant-garde mean? From the French, avant-garde describes experimental or innovative art or design, or the group of people who make them and push the envelope in their field. It can also more generally refer to anything considered "unorthodox" or "radical."
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of avant-garde
First recorded in 1475–85; in sense “vanguard”; from French: literally, “fore-guard;” see vanguard
Explanation
The term avant-garde refers to innovative or experimental concepts or works, or the group of people producing them. Pushing boundaries with his development of Cubism, Pablo Picasso was part of the early 20th-century art world’s avant-garde. In French, avant-garde means the “vanguard” or the “advance guard” — basically the people and ideas that are ahead of their time. Usually it refers to a movement in the arts, like Dadaism, or in politics, like anarchism. Avant-garde can also be used as an adjective to describe something that’s cutting-edge. You might have enjoyed that avant-garde dance piece in which the performers threw marshmallows at each other, even though it was confusing at times.
Vocabulary lists containing avant-garde
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
And in the high-fashion world, model Gabbriette Bechtel embodies the edginess of contemporary Latina Goth looks, one that upends vintage Chicana beauty conventions by pushing them into a more avant-garde space.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 28, 2026
She championed new music and not just the stellar locals, Stravinsky and Schoenberg, but also the avant-garde and world music no one else gave the time of day.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 25, 2026
Yet however avant-garde in form, Saramago’s prose achieves an expert fluidity.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 11, 2026
"Throughout an extraordinary lifetime devoted entirely to artistic creation, Kusama pursued an internationally acclaimed career as a pioneering avant-garde artist whose creative practice encompassed visual art, performance, fiction, and poetry," it said.
From BBC ● Aug. 27, 2026
The art establishment finds these artists too avant-garde in their use of light, a bright palette, visible brushstrokes, unusual composition, and strange angles.
From "Vincent and Theo: The Van Gogh Brothers" by Deborah Heiligman
The troupe’s co-founders, Kelly Copper and Pavol Liska, are serious artists whose shrewd approach and mischievous creative drive combine elements of European and American avant-gardes.
From New York Times ● Oct. 27, 2022
Almost a third of the works here are by women, which, for a show of historical avant-gardes, counts as a lot.
From New York Times ● Dec. 17, 2020
“The era of avant-gardes and exploration being definitively over,” this doyen of the avant-garde proclaims, perhaps sardonically, “what follows is the era of perpetual return, consolidation, citation.”
From New York Times ● Nov. 26, 2019
In his mid-20s, Tavener symbolised what must have seemed like a visionary coming-together of the pop and classical musical avant-gardes.
From The Guardian ● Feb. 19, 2013
It was, as art historian Kristine Stiles has noted, multicultural and multiracial, with more women than most avant-gardes before it.
From The Guardian ● Jun. 18, 2012
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
