a habitual gesture or way of speaking or behaving

learning the great man's speeches and studying his mannerisms

excessive use of a distinctive style in art, literature, or music

he seemed deliberately to be stripping his art of mannerism

a style of 16th-century Italian art preceding the Baroque, characterized by distortions in scale and perspective and the use of bright, often lurid colours. It is particularly associated with the work of Parmigianino, Pontormo, Vasari, and the later Michelangelo