Mannerism

manner + -ism

Full definition of mannerism

Noun

1. A group of verbal or other unconscious habitual behaviors peculiar to an individual.
• 1898, Winston Churchill, The Celebrity Chapter 1, In the old days, to my commonplace and unobserving mind, he gave no evidences of genius whatsoever. He never read me any of his manuscripts, …, and therefore my lack of detection of his promise may in some degree be pardoned. But he had then none of the oddities and mannerisms which I hold to be inseparable from genius, and which struck my attention in after days when I came in contact with the Celebrity.
2. Exaggerated or effected style in art, speech, or other behavior.

From Italian manierismo, from maniera, coined by L. Lanzi at the end of the XVIII century.

Alternative forms

• Mannerism

Noun

1. (arts, literature) In literature, an ostentatious and unnatural style of the second half of the sixteenth century. In the contemporary criticism, described as a negation of the classicist equilibrium, pre-Baroque, and deforming expressiveness.
2. (arts, literature) In fine art, a style that is inspired by previous models, aiming to reproduce subjects in an expressive language.