Aesthete

Quick meaning: Aesthete is a noun meaning (often derogatory) Someone who cultivates an unusually high sensitivity to beauty, as in art or nature, often in a manner perceived to prioritize beauty over other qualities such as virtue and utility.

Meaning

(often derogatory) Someone who cultivates an unusually high sensitivity to beauty, as in art or nature, often in a manner perceived to prioritize beauty over other qualities such as virtue and utility.

Example Sentences

Because what the aesthete does is to say, “oh, I can transform any unpleasant experience into a moment of beauty.”

Although Stanley was the political operator while Pick was the aesthete, it was Stanley who made the early running in Underground design.

I prefer to think of [literature] as providing a discipline of the sensibility—a special way of apprehending reality. But though I prefer such a conception, it gives rise to all sorts of misunderstandings […] To define literature in this fashion is to risk being called a mere aesthete and even an ecapist who refuses to face the harsh facts of life.

Since the days of Søren Kierkegaard, aesthetics – by him termed the aesthetic that is worshipped by the aesthete – has been accused of subjectivism and relativism. An aesthete is allegedly characterized by finding sensuous pleasure in particular phenomena, and by being different from the ethicist or the religious person in being unable to recognize or commit himself to anything universal.

Word Forms

• aesthetes

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include aesthetic, beautilitarian, gusto, sensualism, discernment, beaute.

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