(historical, often capitalized) Specifically, a cultural and intellectual movement in 14th-16th century Europe characterised by attention to Classical culture and a promotion of vernacular texts, notably during the Renaissance. from 19th c.
2009, Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity, Penguin 2010, p. 575:There were good reasons for humanism and the Renaissance to take their origins from fourteenth-century Italy.