: involuntary orientation by an organism or one of its parts that involves turning or curving by movement or by differential growth and is a positive or negative response to a source of stimulation
b
: a reflex reaction involving a tropism
2
: an innate tendency to react in a definite manner to stimuli
The music of Bizet and Gounod partakes of this tropism toward the elegant and pleasing. Janet Malcolm, The New Yorker, 14 July 2022 Is this a late-life aberration, or can the tropism be traced to a deeper angst that was missed in its time?The New Yorker, 18 Apr. 2022 In one way, the press conferences are a logical continuation of Trump’s tropism toward spectacle. Megan Garber, The Atlantic, 24 Apr. 2020 Now, as with so much else, Trumpism is changing that tropism in unpredictable ways. Bill Mckibben, New Republic, 6 July 2017
Word History
Etymology
Noun
generalization of -tropism, after German Tropismus