THE WORDCRAFT DEFINITION DICTIONARY
eclectic
adjective
Drawing ideas, styles, or elements from varied sources.
Local English device voice, when available. This is not a recorded dictionary pronunciation.
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Her eclectic bookshelf held poetry, geology, and detective fiction.
For an exhibition about everyday writing, Selim assembled an eclectic collection of notebooks, shopping lists, postcards, and handwritten signs.
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The eclectic family
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eclecticismnoun
The practice of drawing from varied ideas, styles, or sources.
The exhibition's eclecticism brought together pottery, photographs, and woven art.
The curator defended her eclecticism as a purposeful choice to let different approaches speak to one another. Fusion described the integrated sound-and-paper installation more precisely than it described every work sharing the room. The array of bowls, for example, remained a collection whose separate objects could be compared side by side. In her introduction, she explained why each format belonged in the exhibition, showing that breadth of selection could rest on a clear organizing idea rather than on indiscriminate accumulation.
About this entry
This entry is part of the vocabulary collection supplied by GlobalRPh. Definitions are concise study meanings. Examples combine original teaching sentences with selected passages adapted from the supplied study notes; their source is labeled beside each example. A word may have additional specialized or historical senses.
Adapted from supplied vocabulary notes. Example written for WordCraft.
Source study sections: 14, 18.
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