steampunk.
A subgenre of science fiction that depicts advanced technology combined with Victorian style and aesthetics, such as steam-powered machines and vehicles, visible gears and screws and people dressed in 19th-century attires.
Meaning & usage
A subgenre of science fiction that depicts advanced technology combined with Victorian style and aesthetics, such as steam-powered machines and vehicles, visible gears and screws and people dressed in 19th-century attires.
A writer of steampunk fiction.
A person cosplaying as a steampunk character.
Where this word comes from
From steam + -punk, by analogy with cyberpunk, coined by science-fiction writer Kevin Wayne Jeter (born 1950) in a 1987 letter to the magazine Locus in response to a review of his book Infernal Devices published the same year (see the quotation below).
To depict in a steampunk manner.
Where this word comes from
From steam + -punk, by analogy with cyberpunk, coined by science-fiction writer Kevin Wayne Jeter (born 1950) in a 1987 letter to the magazine Locus in response to a review of his book Infernal Devices published the same year (see the quotation below).
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.