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Pynchon

American  
[pin-chuhn] / ˈpɪn tʃən /

noun

  1. Thomas, born 1937, U.S. novelist.

  2. William, 1590?–1662, English colonist in America.

Pynchon British  
/ ˈpɪntʃən /

noun

  1. Thomas (Ruggles). born 1937, US novelist, author of V (1963), The Crying of Lot 49 (1967), Gravity's Rainbow (1973), Mason and Dixon (1997), and Against the Day (2006)

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

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.

Pynchon is so prophetic, he looked at California in 1966 and already saw a silicon chip.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 9, 2026

It is loosely based on the Thomas Pynchon novel "Vineland"

From Barron's • Feb. 22, 2026

Stories multiply like toadstools in forest loam in the fiction of Thomas Pynchon, America’s most devout skeptic of the narrative urge, yet also one of its greatest exponents.

From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 12, 2025

Controversy at the Smithsonian, a Jazz Age caper from Thomas Pynchon, Rome’s long history and more.

From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 3, 2025

“And I’m a big fan of Pynchon, so he’s an influence.”

From "Genuine Fraud" by E. Lockhart

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.