metafiction
Americannoun
Etymology
Origin of metafiction
First recorded in 1975–80
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
As metafiction goes, it could hardly be more poignant, though poignancy is not the author’s style.
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 20, 2026
While it’s far from unique — everyone from Miguel Cervantes to James Joyce to Jorge Luis Borges to Kurt Vonnegut have played with metafiction — that doesn’t negate its potential.
From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 9, 2024
The traumas of “The New Earth” repeatedly prompt intrusions concerning long prose narratives themselves: bold forays into metafiction.
From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 27, 2023
It's clear that Horowitz enjoys metafiction judging from his writing about writers and centering a murder mystery in the publishing world.
From Salon • Oct. 24, 2022
Italian author Italo Calvino is considered a master of metafiction, a genre of writing in which the author breaks the fourth wall to discuss the act of writing itself.
From New York Times • Apr. 15, 2022
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
