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say it: MAH-durn
modern is an adjective and noun meaning "belonging to the modern era; since the Middle Ages". It is pronounced /ˈmɑdɚn/ — MAH-durn. It carries 7 recorded senses.
belonging to the modern era; since the Middle Ages
“modern art”
“modern furniture”
“modern history”
“totem poles are modern rather than prehistoric”
relating to a recently developed fashion or style
“their offices are in a modern skyscraper”
“tables in modernistic designs”
characteristic of present-day art and music and literature and architecture
ahead of the times
“the advanced teaching methods”
“had advanced views on the subject”
“a forward-looking corporation”
“is British industry innovative enough?”
a contemporary person
a typeface (based on an 18th century design by Gianbattista Bodoni) distinguished by regular shape and hairline serifs and heavy downstrokes
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for modern come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.