modernism

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Modern thought, character, or practice.
2. n. Sympathy with or conformity to modern ideas, practices, or standards.
3. n. A peculiarity of usage or style, as of a word or phrase, that is characteristic of modern times.
4. n. The deliberate departure from tradition and the use of innovative forms of expression that distinguish many styles in the arts and literature of the 20th century.
5. n. A Roman Catholic movement, officially condemned in 1907, that attempted to examine traditional belief according to contemporary philosophy, criticism, and historiography.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A deviation from ancient manner or practice; something recently made or introduced; especially, a modern phrase, idiom, or mode of expression.
2. n. Modern cast or character; a modern method of thinking, or the habit of regarding matters from a modern point of view.
3. n. Specifically, a tendency among Roman Catholics to modern and progressive views condemned by Pius X. in an encyclical issued in 1907.

Wiktionary

1. n. uncountable Modern or contemporary ideas, thought, practices, etc.
2. n. countable Anything that is characteristic of modernity.
3. n. any of several styles of art, architecture, literature, philosophy, etc., that flourished in the 20th century
4. n. a religious movement in the early 20th century that tried to reconcile Roman Catholic dogma with modern science and philosophy

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. Modern practice; a thing of recent date; esp., a modern usage or mode of expression.
2. n. Certain methods and tendencies which, in Biblical questions, apologetics, and the theory of dogma, in the endeavor to reconcile the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church with the conclusions of modern science, replace the authority of the church by purely subjective criteria; -- so called officially by Pope Pius X.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. the quality of being current or of the present
2. n. genre of art and literature that makes a self-conscious break with previous genres
3. n. practices typical of contemporary life or thought