authenticism

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noun

A belief in the superiority of the authentic over the inauthentic.

Scrabble 19

Meanings

nounauthenticism (usually uncountable, plural authenticisms)

plural authenticisms

  1. uncountableusuallyA belief in the superiority of the authentic over the inauthentic.

    Sinclair Lewis claimed that American letters exemplified a divorce of intellectual life from authenticism and reality.

    1994, Allene Cooper, “Science and the Reception of Poetry in Postbellum American Journals”, in American Periodicals, Vol. 4, p. 44 n4
    2 more examples

    If performers of Early Music—and especially medieval music—could no longer appeal to an unattainable authenticity, they could nevertheless adhere unabashedly and tenaciously to the values and precepts that spawned authenticism in the first place, namely a comprehension of, and a stalwart respect for, the historical place of their repertoire and the empowerment which accompanies such knowledge.

    2006, Jonathan Shull, “Locating the Past in the Present: Living Traditions and the Performance of Early Music”, in Ethnomusicology Forum, volume 15, number 1, page 91

    Pasternak portrays art as iskusstvo-vran'e, the art that deceives, defending it against Lef's demands for a crude authenticism.

    2007, Megan Swift, “‘The Tale’ and the Novel: Pasternak and the Politics of Genre”, in Canadian Slavonic Papers, Vol. 49, No. 1/2 (March-June), p. 121

Origin

Cite this entry
APA

authenticism. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/authenticism

MLA

“authenticism.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/authenticism. Accessed November 2, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “authenticism,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/authenticism.

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