Definition of "postmodern" []

• Of or relating to art, architecture, or literature that reacts against earlier modernist principles, as by reintroducing traditional or classical elements of style or by carrying modernist styles or practices to extremes: "It [a roadhouse]is so architecturally interesting . . . with its postmodern wooden booths and sculptural clock” ( Ruth Reichl). (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.

• "Without even trying, American TV watchers have developed an amazingly sophisticated view of postmodernism, even if they would never use the word postmodern in any conversation or even be able to define it.14 However, this was still a new idea in 1994."
• "Messrs. Heilleman and Halperin speak of what they call postmodern politics as "a meat grinder/flesh incinerator.""
• "During his nine years as president, Kieschnick, 67, was criticized by traditionalists who bemoaned what they called his postmodern approach to the church."