purism

American  

[pyoor-iz-uhm] / ˈpjʊər ɪz əm /

noun

1. strict observance of or insistence on purity in language, style, etc.

2. an instance of this.

3. Fine Arts. Often Purism a style of art developed in France in the early 20th century, characterized by the use of simple geometric forms and images evocative of objects produced by machine.

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purism British  

/ ˈpjʊəˌrɪzəm /

noun

1. insistence on traditional canons of correctness of form or purity of style or content, esp in language, art, or music

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Other Word Forms

• purist
  noun
• purist
  adjective
• puristic
  adjective
• puristically
  adverb

Etymology

Origin of purism

First recorded in 1795–1805; pure + -ism

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

purism

Frankel’s dispatches showcase the culinary world’s relative lack of purism about the dish.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 31, 2026

Stanford’s self-proclaimed ecological purism doesn’t mean he believes we should do away with nonnative species altogether, though.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 20, 2024

But I do employ a similar sense of purism about the general strategy.

From Washington Post ● Jul. 25, 2021

He added: "The EU needs a new playbook for dealing with neighbours, one that involves pragmatic solutions between friends, not the imposition of one side's rules on the other and legal purism."

From BBC ● Jun. 6, 2021

It is in the spirit of this classical purism that Scaliger minutely distinguishes the various rhetorical and grammatical figures, and carefully estimates their proper place and function in poetry.

From A History of Literary Criticism in the Renaissance With special reference to the influence of Italy in the formation and development of modern classicism by Joel Elias Spingarn