Definition of "avant-garde" []

• A group active in the invention and application of new techniques in a given field, especially in the arts. (noun)
• Of, relating to, or being part of an innovative group, especially one in the arts: avant-garde painters; an avant-garde theater piece. (adjective)

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.

• "The Academy Award nominations also took note of what some were calling an avant-garde American film."
• "The very term avant-garde implies an anticipation of society's will: the artist as advance guard, foreseeing trends or events to come."
• "Mr. Jacobs, a beloved figure in American avant-garde cinema, has long been invested in a mode he considers far more natural than the two-dimensional standard."