penny dreadful
penny dreadful · penny dreadfuls
A cheap paperback book, particularly those concerning lurid depictions of crime in the…A cheap paperback book, particularly those concerning lurid depictions of crime in the Victorian era.
Meaning
2 sensesA cheap paperback book, particularly those concerning lurid depictions of crime in the Victorian era.
Pulp fiction: stories written in the lurid style of the penny dreadfuls.
More definitions
- a melodramatic paperback novel
Origin
From its low price and the lower-class British use of dreadful (“sensationalized crime repFrom its low price and the lower-class British use of dreadful (“sensationalized crime reporting”).
Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
Forms
plural: penny dreadfuls| Singular | penny dreadful |
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| Plural | penny dreadfuls |
regular
Synonyms
1 synonymsClose in meaning
- a melodramatic paperback novel:dime novel