avant-garde

American  

[uh-vahnt-gahrd, uh-vant-, av-ahnt-, ah-vahnt-, a-vahn-gard] / əˌvɑntˈgɑrd, əˌvænt-, ˌæv ɑnt-, ˌɑ vɑnt-, a vɑ̃ˈgard /

noun

• avant-gardes
  plural

1. the advance group in any field, especially in the visual, literary, or musical arts, whose works are characterized chiefly by unorthodox and experimental methods.

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adjective

1. of or relating to the experimental treatment of artistic, musical, or literary material.

2. belonging to the avant-garde.

   an avant-garde composer.

3. 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.

avant-garde British  

/ avɑ̃ɡard, ˌævɒŋˈɡɑːd /

noun

1. those artists, writers, musicians, etc, whose techniques and ideas are markedly experimental or in advance of those generally accepted

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adjective

1. of such artists, etc, their ideas, or techniques

2. 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

• avant-gardism
  noun
• avant-gardist
  noun

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• avant-gardes
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of avant-garde

First recorded in 1475–85; in sense “vanguard”; from French: literally, “fore-guard;” see vanguard

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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.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

avant-garde avant-gardes

Both “Run the Gauntlet” and “Lost in Geneva” demonstrate that a traditional setting makes an ideal host for an avant-garde spirit.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 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

Later experiments with advertising posters, which presented test printings as stand-alone works of art, establish connections among Duchamp’s Readymades, contemporaneous avant-garde movements like Fluxus and Nouveau Réalisme, and future creators like Jeff Koons.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 25, 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

Nor do I know whether accepting the lesson has placed me in the rear or in the avant-garde.

From "Invisible Man" by Ralph Ellison

“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

She has been rightly noticed by other artistic avant-gardes, and has collaborated with electronic composers and been commissioned by choreographers.

From New York Times ● May 26, 2017

It took many years, and a model of art history that stopped seeing the past as a mere succession of avant-gardes, before Klossowski finally won attention in Europe as a visual artist.

From New York Times ● Dec. 3, 2015

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

Mott thinks that punk has been misrepresented since, both by rock historians who have over-intellectualised its meaning and context, and by curators who over-emphasise its artistic links to previous avant-gardes.

From The Guardian ● Aug. 28, 2010

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Related Words

• advanced
• ahead of its time
• experimental
• groundbreaking
• innovative
• innovatory
• inventive
• modern
• new
• original
• pioneering
• progressive
• revolutionary
• state-of-the-art
• trailblazing
• ultramodern
• unorthodox

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