gestural

American  

[jes-cher-uhl] / ˈdʒɛs tʃər əl /

adjective

1. relating to, expressed in, using, or made up of gestures, especially of the hands and arms, head, or upper body.

2. (of an act) merely symbolic or done for effect; being merely a token or formality.

3. Art. relating to a painting style that emphasizes the physical movement of the artist, characterized by sweeping, energetic brush strokes or by smearing, splashing, etc., rather than small, careful strokes.

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Example Sentences

Illustrating these feelings of faith meant giving gestural directions to more than a hundred extras on set in addition to choreographing dozens of actors and dancers.

From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 2, 2025

A large, gestural 1972 painting attested to a road not taken, while records of his sojourns in Europe and Africa revealed the influence of architecture on abstract structure.

From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 25, 2025

We understood each other perfectly - with a gestural language that obviously predates human speech.”

From BBC • Nov. 16, 2024

"Similarly, when birds perch on branches, their wings become free, which we think may facilitate the development of gestural communication."

From Salon • Apr. 2, 2024

The entire artistic effort to transcend the figurative and the narrative, to explore the abstract and the gestural, to explore its own reality, and to establish new languages testifies to this striving towards emancipation.

From The Civilization of Illiteracy by Nadin, Mihai