1. often New Wave
   1. A movement in French cinema in the 1960s, led by directors such as Jean Luc Godard and François Truffaut, that abandoned traditional narrative techniques in favor of greater use of symbolism and abstraction and dealt with themes of social alienation, psychopathology, and sexual love. Also called nouvelle vague.
   2. Any of various new movements in cinema, especially one led by a group of experimental filmmakers.
2. An avant-garde or experimental movement, as in the arts.
3. Music. A style of rock music popularized in the early 1980s, marked by the use of synthesizers.

[Translation of French nouvelle vague : nouvelle, new + vague, wave.]

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.