From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishthe artsthe arts[plural]ART/CULTURE art, music, theatre, film, literature etc all considered together Government funding for the arts has been reduced. → art
Examples from the Corpus
the arts• Granston is a graphic artist who now teaches visual arts and journalism at the college.• They have drama classes at the arts centre every Thursday night.• The city deserves a distinctive, central district to celebrate the arts, and itself.• The city built the California Center for the Arts, Escondido downtown and has taken other measures to help revive that area.• Under the new government much of the funding for the performing arts would be cut.• The government should provide more money for the arts.• I've always been interested in the arts even though I didn't have much talent myself.• The Tubac Center of the Arts features museum-quality exhibits.• The Open College of the Arts is an educational trust.• A lot of the arts fellows think Humphrey's a bit of a twit and tend to talk down to him.• Italians are proud of their country's contributions to the arts.• The question is whether the arts council, Congress, or the chairman, knows best what taxpayers really want.• The problem comes with the arts. 