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n. 1. a. A category of artistic composition, as in music or literature, marked by a distinctive style, form, or content: "his six String Quartets ... the most important works in the genre since Beethoven's" (Time). b. A realistic style of painting that depicts scenes from everyday life. 2. A type or class: "Emaciated famine victims ... on television focused a new genre of attention on the continent" (Helen Kitchen). [French, from Old French, kind, from Latin genus, gener-; see genə- in the Appendix of Indo-European roots.] |
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