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

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.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

avant-garde avant-gardes

Even Leo Stein, the American expatriate proponent of avant-garde art, called it “brilliant and powerful, but the nastiest smear of paint I had ever seen.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 25, 2026

“Another Dimension” is his answer to the years of rejection, pain and incandescent ire, but transmuted into a vibrant, avant-garde, genre-defying gaping wound found within 11 tight tracks.

From Salon ● Jun. 5, 2026

Elon Musk’s rocket company has spent $131 million on the avant-garde truck.

From Barron's ● May 30, 2026

The orchestra’s vast ambition reaches into — and often reinvents — music education, pop music, film music, Latino culture, visual arts, theater, architecture, classical music, opera and avant-garde new music.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 26, 2026

Albert Ayler was an amazing, avant-garde saxophonist known only to the most die-hard jazz enthusiasts.

From "The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother" by James McBride

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

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

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

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