thriller
Americannoun
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thrillers
plural
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a person or thing that thrills.
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an exciting, suspenseful play or story, especially a mystery story.
noun
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a book, film, play, etc, depicting crime, mystery, or espionage in an atmosphere of excitement and suspense
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a person or thing that thrills
Discover More
In Great Britain, the word thriller is sometimes used for all mystery novels: “Martha Grimes, an American, writes British-style thrillers.”
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of thriller
1885–90; 1920–25 thriller for def. 2; thrill + -er 1
Explanation
A thriller is a suspenseful movie, TV show, book, or play. If you love thrillers, you probably enjoy mysterious plots, suspicious characters, and being on the edge of your seat. Thrillers are known for being exciting and sometimes scary, evoking emotions like anticipation, fear, and suspense. They tend to use plot twists and cliffhangers to keep an audience or reader intrigued, and they often feature a villain. The literary label thriller first appeared in the late 1800s, from the verb thrill, "give a shivering, excited feeling."
Vocabulary lists containing thriller
Literary Genres - Introductory
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Literary Genres - Advanced
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Reading: Literature - Literary Genres - Middle School
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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.
See Examples For:
This sounds unwieldy and somewhat contrived, but Ms. Ní Ghríofa’s insistent, confiding style is captivating and her eccentric exploration has the urgency of a psychological thriller.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 30, 2026
More than 10,000 screenings of the sci-fi thriller "Sanxingdui: Future Past" are scheduled for Friday, according to ticketing platform Maoyan.
From Barron's ● Oct. 23, 2026
According to IMDb, he acted in the 2024 thriller “My Acting Coach Nightmare” and in 2010, he voiced Sid in “Toy Story 3,” a role he also played in the 1995 original.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 21, 2026
They have now lost both games in the immediate aftermath of their Europa League outings, although one of those was an eight-goal thriller against unbeaten league leaders Manchester City.
From BBC ● Oct. 18, 2026
A thriller that might require the light to be left on overnight.
From "The Bletchley Riddle" by Ruta Sepetys and Steve Sheinkin
When a name like Jim Caviezel shows up in QAnon-adjacent thrillers, it’s a bit of a “fork found in kitchen” situation.
From Salon ● Oct. 18, 2026
The film marks a departure for Gilroy, who cut his teeth writing action movies like the "Bourne" films and legal thrillers like "Michael Clayton."
From Barron's ● Oct. 4, 2026
The fall TV season has the return of hit series, new thrillers and adaptations of Steinbeck and Austen classics.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 26, 2026
In the spring of 2022, Hamm approached Ryan, the creator of TV thrillers like “The Shield” and “The Night Agent,” with the idea of adapting the “American Hostage” podcast into a miniseries.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 18, 2026
He’s been in thirty-eight dramas, twelve crime pictures and comedies, eleven thrillers, eight action films, seven Westerns, six war movies, four documentaries, three horror flicks, two sci-fi films, and a musical, among others.
From "The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
