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Definition of "transcendentalism" [tran•scen•den•tal•ism]

  • A literary and philosophical movement, associated with Ralph Waldo Emerson and Margaret Fuller, asserting the existence of an ideal spiritual reality that transcends the empirical and scientific and is knowable through intuition. (noun)
  • The quality or state of being transcendental. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "transcendentalism" in a sentence
  • "The philosophy known as transcendentalism left its impress on much of the work of this age."
  • "This I can believe, and it brings me to Emerson's transcendentalism, which is set forth in the Sphinx -- "Deep Love lieth under these pictures of Time, which fade in the light of their meaning sublime.""
  • "He connects the expiring Calvinism of the old Puritan theocracy with what is called the transcendentalism embodied in the writings of Emerson and other leaders of young America."