Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Mannerism

Mannerism , noun

[Compare French maniérisme.]

1.
Adherence to a peculiar style or manner; a characteristic mode of action, bearing, behavior, or treatment of others.
2.
Adherence to a peculiar style or manner carried to excess, especially in literature or art.
Mannerism is pardonable,and is sometimes even agreeable, when the manner, though vicious, is natural.... But a mannerism which does not sit easy on the mannerist, which has been adopted on principle, and which can be sustained only by constant effort, is always offensive. — Macaulay