modernist

American  

[mod-er-nist] / ˈmɒd ər nɪst /

noun

modernists plural

1. a person who follows or favors modern ways, tendencies, etc.

2. a person who advocates the study of modern subjects in preference to ancient classics.

3. an adherent of modernism in theological questions.

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adjective

1. of modernists or modernism.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• antimodernist
  noun
• hypermodernist
  noun
• promodernist
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• modernists
  plural

Etymology

Origin of modernist

First recorded in 1580–90; modern + -ist

Explanation

An artist who belonged to a 19th- and 20th-century art movement that rejected old ideas and styles was called a modernist. Virginia Woolf is one example of a modernist writer. The philosophy behind modernist art and writing was basically that the old Victorian ways of expressing artistic vision weren't keeping up with the changes in society. Modern industry, the growth of cities, and reactions to World War I were all factors that affected modernists' break with the old style. Modernist painters included the Impressionists (like Manet and Monet). Philosopher Immanuel Kant, psychologist Sigmund Freud, and composer Arnold Schoenberg are all also considered to be modernists.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

modernist modernists

A sleek modernist home with a single white director’s chair sits in the background with two slender palm trees rising into the light blue sky behind.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 12, 2026

Graham developed her now-familiar modernist principles for working the torso and spine, known as “contraction” and “release,” with her troupe, all female at the time, between 1927 and 1928.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 9, 2026

Architects Billie Tsien and Tod Williams brushed off criticism, saying that Obama himself was inspired by the chunky works of the modernist Romanian sculptor.

From Barron's ● Jun. 4, 2026

With Lebanon, again, engulfed by war, I remember a meeting I had with President Joseph Aoun at the Baabda Palace, a modernist building at the top of a hill overlooking Beirut last August.

From BBC ● Apr. 13, 2026

He’d argued for something modernist, full of glass and light, but she’d wanted a brownstone like this one.

From "The Namesake" by Jhumpa Lahiri

Keynes set out to turn economics theory on its head, Smith to explore the classical ideas that the modernists were tossing aside.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 21, 2026

The Scott Dunn Orchestra debuted last May with a whole concert devoted to Henry Mancini, followed in November by a showcase of Hollywood’s midcentury modernists.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 15, 2026

Back then, the trial was considered an argument between fundamentalists and modernists — but there was debate.

From Salon ● May 30, 2023

This would include the early 20th-century American modernists — especially those of the Stieglitz circle — whose efforts the museum has too often displayed, until recent years, near its escalators or elevators.

From New York Times ● Apr. 27, 2023

I am with the modernists, but at the same time I can understand how dangerous it must seem to the dogmatists to abandon even an inch of the country that Paul conquered for them.

From The Cathedral by Walpole, Hugh, Sir