Meanings
- uncountableA subgenre of speculative fiction, based on the technology and society of the Renaissance.
Oddly enough, K. W. Jeter wrote a clockpunk novel in 1987 called Infernal Devices. The story takes place in London and involves human-fish hybrids and a brilliant clockwork maker whose father had been experimenting with building automata, clockwork humans.
2013, Lois H. Gresh, The Mortal Instruments Companion, St. Martin's Press, →ISBN, page 1322 more examples
The term [steampunk] is also frequently applied to works set in original worlds drawing inspiration from nineteenth century culture and technology, and at times is even used to refer to comparable blends of alternate history and retro-futurism across a much wider historical span (blurring with categories like Renaissance-era "clockpunk" and interwar "dieselpunk").
2011, Nader Elhefnawy, After the New Wave: Science Fiction Since 1980, Createspace, →ISBNThen sometime in the early 90's^([sic]) came steampunk. Alright, that's a little goofy, but people understood what it meant. It was the "punk"-like hacker culture from cyberpunk using Victorian era, steam based technology. […] But authors couldn't stop there! No, they had to go back further and write about clockpunk: hackers in Da Vinci's time making things run on springs and gears and other clockwork.
2011, Ted Stoltz, Universal Serendipity, Lulu Press, →ISBN, pages 43–44
Origin
From clock + -punk, from clockwork.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
clockpunk. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/clockpunk
“clockpunk.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/clockpunk. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “clockpunk,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/clockpunk.
Source: clockpunk on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.