Definition of "eclecticism" [ec•lec•ti•cism]

• An eclectic system or method. (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.

• "But today, musical eclecticism is the norm, and in the current production, conducted with authority by Jayce Ogren and directed with acuity by Christopher Alden, the opera feels like one brilliantly composed piece."
• "The word eclecticism has been used so much for the last 30 years that it has become meaningless - a sad, grasping pile of obstruents and sibilants, like a dying fire's last pops and hisses."
• "But if the eclecticism is a convenient and agreeable attitude for its champions, it is, like hybridism, sterile, and neither life nor science owe anything to it."