Meanings
robinsonade1
plural robinsonades · alternative Robinsonade
- A genre of adventure fiction where a hero is stranded alone on a desert island and has to survive with their own wits.
Much, perhaps most, Minecraft fiction follows the robinsonade template, emphasizing the day-to-day life of a character, including nonhuman characters, striving to survive and thrive in a recognizably Minecraftian world by utilizing its resources.
2020, Michael T. Wilson, “Minecraft Fiction”, in Anne H. Stevens, Molly C. O’Donnell, editors, The Microgenre: A Quick Look at Small Culture, Bloomsbury Academic, →ISBN
Robinsonade2
plural Robinsonades
- Alternative letter-case form of robinsonade.
The reader has so far followed Mr. Lecky, the novella’s single reflector, on a Robinsonade through a deserted department store.
1996 summer, Manfred Jahn, “Windows of Focalization: Deconstructing and Reconstructing a Narratological Concept”, in Style, volume 30, number 2, →ISSN, page 2572 more examples
The individual and isolated hunter and fisherman, with whom Smith and Ricardo begin, belongs among the unimaginative conceits of the eighteenth-century Robinsonades, which in no way express merely a reaction against over-sophistication and a return to a misunderstood natural life, as cultural historians imagine.
1973, Karl Marx, translated by Martin Nicolaus, Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy, New York, N.Y.: Vintage Books, →ISBN, page 83If it touches on isolation, tabulae rasae, or close encounters of a new kind, or if it has a character commenting on society from the outside—it’s a Robinsonade.
2013 September 16, Kent Russell, “The Lost Boy of Restoration Island”, in The New Republic, volume 244, number 15
Origin
- GermanRobinsonade
- Englishrobinsonade
Borrowed from German Robinsonade, analyzable in English as Robinson + -ade, named after fictional character Robinson Crusoe, from Daniel Defoe’s 1719 novel Robinson Crusoe.
More words from German
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Czech robinzonáda
- robinzonádagenre of adventure fiction
Danish robinsonade
- robinsonadegenre of adventure fiction
Dutch robinsonade
- robinsonadegenre of adventure fiction
French robinsonnade
- robinsonnadegenre of adventure fiction
German Robinsonade
- Robinsonadegenre of adventure fiction
Norwegian Bokmål robinsonade
- robinsonadegenre of adventure fiction
Polish robinsonada
- robinsonadagenre of adventure fiction
Spanish robinsonada
- robinsonadagenre of adventure fiction
Swedish robinsonad
- robinsonadgenre of adventure fiction
Rhymes & wordplay
Rhymes with robinsonade
Cite this entry
robinsonade. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/robinsonade
“robinsonade.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/robinsonade. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “robinsonade,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/robinsonade.
Source: robinsonade on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.