Did you know?
Genre, as you might guess from the way it sounds, comes straight from French, a language based on Latin. It's closely related to genus, a word you may have encountered in biology class. Both words contain the gen- root because they indicate that everything in a particular category (a genre or a genus) belongs to the same "family" and thus has the same origins. So the main genres of classical music would include symphonies, sonatas, and opera, and the major genres of literature would include novels, short stories, poetry, and drama. But within the category of novels, we could also say that detective novels, sci-fi novels, romance novels, and young-adult novels are separate genres.
Examples of genre in a Sentence
Joyce Carol Oates, New York Review of Books, 14 Aug. 2003
One of the first marketers outside of hip-hop to recognize the power of the genre … . he first sent models sashaying down the runway in 1991 in hip-hop chic, with sneakers and chunky gold chains …
—Johnnie L. Roberts, Newsweek, 2 Sept. 2002
Even the local Catholic archdiocesan weekly, hardly an exciting genre, offers a more provocative sampling of opinion on its editorial page.
—Walker Percy, "New Orleans Mon Amour," 1968,
in Signposts in a Strange Land, 1991
This book is a classic of the mystery genre.
the novel's hero is of a different genre than the traditional kind
Jenny S. Li, Variety, 20 Sep. 2025
There has been lot of awareness of the gentrification of the genre and people getting ripped off.
—David Browne, Rolling Stone, 20 Sep. 2025
His songwriting spanned multiple decades and genres, from rock 'n' roll's formative years through television's golden age.
—Adeola Adeosun, MSNBC Newsweek, 20 Sep. 2025
And Wolfe Herd’s career—with its combination of early success, controversy, and ultimately a billion-dollar IPO—fits neatly into the genre.
—Eva Roytburg, Fortune, 20 Sep. 2025
See All Example Sentences for genre
Cite this Entry
“Genre.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/genre. Accessed 22 Sep. 2025.
Copy CitationKids Definition
genre
noun
French
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