Elfpunk

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A subgenre of urban fantasy in which fairies, elves, and other creatures from traditional European folklore exist in a contemporary urban setting. uncountable

    "Or, on a more personal level, imagine a world without Heinlein’s literary children, and grandchildren. A world in which fewer writers and artists turned to science fiction and fantasy because Heinlein had not blazed the trail; and therefore a world in which the rich array of fantastic literature — from “hard” sf and “new wave” to “high fantasy” and “dark fantasy,” to “cyberpunk” and “splatterpunk” and “elfpunk” and all the rest — never came to be."

Example

More examples

"Or, on a more personal level, imagine a world without Heinlein’s literary children, and grandchildren. A world in which fewer writers and artists turned to science fiction and fantasy because Heinlein had not blazed the trail; and therefore a world in which the rich array of fantastic literature — from “hard” sf and “new wave” to “high fantasy” and “dark fantasy,” to “cyberpunk” and “splatterpunk” and “elfpunk” and all the rest — never came to be."

Etymology

From elf + -punk.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.