art form
Americannoun
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the more or less established structure, pattern, or scheme followed in shaping an artistic work.
The sonata, the sonnet, and the novel are all art forms.
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a medium for artistic expression.
ballet, sculpture, opera, and other art forms.
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a medium other than the artistic regarded as having highly developed or systematized rules, procedures, or formulations.
international diplomacy regarded as an art form.
noun
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a conventionally established form of artistic composition, such as the symphony or the sonnet
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a recognized medium of artistic expression
Etymology
Origin of art form
First recorded in 1865–70
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.
A new vanguard—led by the beer-swilling redneck Stone Cold Steve Austin—would bring the art form into the modern age by embracing bad taste.
From Slate • Jun. 11, 2026
These connections made anime and martial arts cinema’s incorporation into hip-hop, an art form built on collaboration and sonic collage, somewhat inevitable.
From Salon • May 31, 2026
Anime watchers who start young tend to stick with the art form into adulthood, unlike other media popular with teenagers.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 8, 2026
The dress code for the gala is Fashion Is Art, with guests invited to explore their relationship to fashion as an embodied art form and celebrate depictions of the dressed body throughout art history.
From BBC • May 3, 2026
Like most Bengalis, my parents had elevated repression and denial to a high art form, but even so, questions about this particular history were unavoidable.
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.