lettrism

L1E1T1T1R1I1S1M3

proper noun

A French avant-garde art and literary movement established in the mid-1940s, owing inspiration to Dada and surrealism.

Scrabble 10

Meanings

lettrism1

proper noun
  1. Alternative letter-case form of Lettrism.

Lettrism2

proper noun

alternative Letterism · alternative lettrism

  1. A French avant-garde art and literary movement established in the mid-1940s, owing inspiration to Dada and surrealism.

    So if lettrism, like Dada, came out of a reaction against a world war, Lettrism did not remain a protest . . . [but became] an exaltation of permanently renewed arts, philosophy, scientific knowledge, technology; […]

    1983, Tom McDonough, quoting Jean-Paul Curtay, Lettrism: A Neo-Dadaism?, quoted in Guy Debord and the Situationist International: Texts and Documents, MIT Press, published 2002, →ISBN, page 442
    1 more example

    Isou's lettrism was the Wagnerian Gesamtkunstwerk in the grip of decomposition, a project for the total destruction of art, that is, a project of total art, another avatar of what Mallarmé ironically referred to as the Book, […]

    2006, Vincent Kaufmann, translated by Robert Bononno, Guy Debord: Revolution in the Service of Poetry, University of Minnesota Press, →ISBN

Origin

  1. FrenchLettrisme
  2. EnglishLettrism

From French Lettrisme, ultimately from lettre (“letter”).

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

lettrism. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/lettrism

MLA

“lettrism.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/lettrism. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “lettrism,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/lettrism.

Source: lettrism on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.