Adjacent Words

aesthetics definitions

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WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: (art) the branch of philosophy dealing with beauty and taste (emphasizing the evaluative criteria that are applied to art); "traditional aesthetics assumed the existence of universal and timeless criteria of artistic value" [syn: aesthetics, esthetics]

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

AEsthetics [AE]s*thet"ics, Esthetics Es*thet"ics (?; 277), n. [Gr. ? perceptive, esp. by feeling, fr. ? to perceive, feel: cf. G. ["a]sthetik, F. esth['e]tique.] The theory or philosophy of taste; the science of the beautiful in nature and art; esp. that which treats of the expression and embodiment of beauty by art.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

Note: in AM, also use 'esthetics' Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy concerned with the study of the idea of beauty.

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

n. [Sometimes written Esthetics.] Science of the beautiful, philosophy of the fine arts, theory or philosophy of taste.

Moby Thesaurus

artistic taste, axiology, casuistry, connoisseurship, cosmology, dilettantism, epicureanism, epicurism, epistemology, ethics, expertise, expertism, first philosophy, friandise, gastronomy, gnosiology, logic, mental philosophy, metaphysics, moral philosophy, ontology, phenomenology, philosophastry, philosophic doctrine, philosophic system, philosophic theory, philosophical inquiry, philosophical speculation, philosophy, school of philosophy, school of thought, science of being, sophistry, theory of beauty, theory of knowledge, value theory, virtu, virtuosity