cubist
Americanadjective
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Explanation
A cubist is an artist who transforms natural shapes into exaggerated geometric ones. Pablo Picasso is the most famous of all cubist painters. Starting in the early 20th century, the art movement known as cubism began in Western Europe. Cubists attempted to show many perspectives at once in their work by breaking down their subjects into sections and then representing them as small, flat blocks. Cubist comes from cubism, which was coined after a French art critic dismissed their "bizarreries cubiques," or "cubic oddities."
Vocabulary lists containing cubist
Words to Describe a Work of Art
Looking to grow your vocabulary? Check out this interactive, curated word list from our team of English language specialists at Vocabulary.com – one of over 17,000 lists we've built to help learners worldwide!
Still Life with Tornado
Interested in learning more words like this one? Our team at Vocabulary.com has got you covered! You can review flashcards, quiz yourself, practice spelling, and more – and it's all completely free to use!
Symphony for the City of the Dead
Want to remember this word for good? Start your learning journey today with our library of interactive, themed word lists built by the experts at Vocabulary.com – we'll help you make the most of your study time!
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.
See Examples For:
In the 1980s Hockney invented a kind of photo collage he dubbed "joiners" that used slightly different images to produce a patchwork akin to the cubist painting of his hero Pablo Picasso.
From Barron's ● Jun. 12, 2026
And one of his largest cubist scenes of a “Man with a Guitar” from 1913 that once belonged to writer Gertrude Stein sold for $41 million.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 19, 2026
“Napoleon Dynamite” director Jared Hess hurls tater tots and two competitive dorks played by Jack Black and Jason Momoa into the cubist, mega-popular video game.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 6, 2025
The painting also shows the early signs of Husain's modified cubist style - where geometric shapes and bold lines stood out in his works.
From BBC ● Mar. 28, 2025
I did it cubist so his face looks even more like it’s in a smashed mirror.
From "I'll Give You the Sun" by Jandy Nelson
![]()
Marquez said the painting was inspired by master cubists like Pablo Picasso and his masterpiece “Guernica,” which depicted a town in rubble after it was bombed during the Spanish Civil War.
From Seattle Times ● Jul. 9, 2021
When he holds forth on how his generation murdered the cubists, he is just describing the natural course of progenitors and their offspring.
From New York Times ● May 12, 2016
He knew anarchists, bolshevists, socialists, communists, fascists, pacifists, falangists and Stalinists, to say nothing of cubists, futurists, dadaists, surrealists, suprematists, constructivists, destructivists and stridentists.
From The Guardian ● May 7, 2010
But there were protests from the other cubists, who had formed a little cult around Picasso and Braque, and in the end Duchamp’s own brothers, artists both, forced him to take it down.
From Washington Post
Mere foolishness to the majority, the cubists, futurists and the like presented objects to others—others quite as intelligent as the majority, quite as competent to judge—with an authentic fiat of truth and beauty.
From The Promise of Air by Blackwood, Algernon
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.