Definition of "organicism" [or•gan•i•cism]

• The concept that society or the universe is analogous to a biological organism, as in development or organization. (noun)
• The doctrine that the total organization of an organism, rather than the functioning of individual organs, is the principal or exclusive determinant of every life process. (noun)
• Pathology The theory that all disease is associated with structural alterations of organs. (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.

• "All this is familiar, of course, as is the political organicism which is its corollary."
• "I still sense that Aster’s implied higher level principles presuppose some kind of organicism here — not that she personally accepts them."
• "Book Made of Forest is exactly that; its poems exhibit a sort of humble, subtle, contemplative organicism that cannot be taught, and that connotes an earnest and unaffected attachment to the natural both literally and aesthetically."