Meanings
nounweird fiction (uncountable)
- uncountableA macabre subgenre of speculative fiction originating in the late 19th and early 20th century, pre-dating the horror and fantasy genres.
Weird fiction is, after all, notoriously typified by the presence of entities so radically different from normality that they are, to borrow a characteristic phrase from H. P. Lovecraft, “impossible to describe” (Lovecraft 2014: 404).
2020, Julius Greve, Florian Zappe, editors, The American Weird: Concept and Medium, Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN, pages 30–31
Origin
Popularized by H. P. Lovecraft.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
APA
weird fiction. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/weird%20fiction
MLA
“weird fiction.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/weird%20fiction. Accessed November 4, 2026.
Chicago
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “weird fiction,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/weird%20fiction.
Source: weird fiction on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.