What does "genre" mean?

A kind; a stylistic category or sort, especially of literature or other artworks.

What is a synonym for "genre"?

Common synonyms include: class, kind, type, aesthetic form, archetype, art form.

Genre

//ˈ(d)ʒɑnɹə// noun, verb

noun, verb ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Noun

1
A kind; a stylistic category or sort, especially of literature or other artworks.
"The still life has been a popular genre in painting since the 17th century."
2
a class of art (or artistic endeavor) having a characteristic form or technique wordnet
3
a kind of literary or artistic work wordnet
4
a style of expressing yourself in writing wordnet

Verb

1
To assign or conform to a genre, to make genre-specific.
"For quotations using this term, see Citations:genre."

Synonyms

All synonyms

class kind type aesthetic form archetype art form

Example

More examples

"I think style and genre are less important factors in making us like music than the individual artist's skills in arrangement and playing of the instrument."

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from French genre, from Old French gen(d)re, borrowed from Latin genere. Doublet of gender and genus.

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