Word.ws English Dictionary

chick lit

/ˈt͡ʃɪk ˌlɪt/

chick lit noun: literature perceived to appeal to, or be marketed at, young women, typically concerning romantic dilemmas.

Noun

chick lit (uncountable)

  1. (derogatory, often) Literature perceived to appeal to, or be marketed at, young women, typically concerning romantic dilemmas.
    • Hello, my name is Michele and I'm proud to be a chick-lit author. I write the kind of novel that gets spattered with margarita and suncream rather than soaked in Booker-type praise. You know the books I mean. You need only look for their pastel covers, or follow the trail that leads to one of their...2010 August 5, Michele Gorman, “The chick-lit debate: light doesn't have to mean stupid”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

Forms of chick lit

alternative formchick-lit
alternative formchicklit

Origin of chick lit

From the English slang words chick (“girl, woman”) and lit (“literature”).

Questions about chick lit

What does chick lit mean?
Chick lit means literature perceived to appeal to, or be marketed at, young women, typically concerning romantic dilemmas.
What part of speech is chick lit?
Chick lit is a noun.
How do you pronounce chick lit?
Chick lit is pronounced /ˈt͡ʃɪk ˌlɪt/.

Words near chick lit in the dictionary

  1. chick flick
  2. chick flickish
  3. chick flicks
  4. chick friend
  5. chick friends
  6. chick lit
  7. chick magnet
  8. chick magnets
  9. chick pea
  10. chick peas
  11. chick with a dick

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: chick lit (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “chick lit.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/chick_lit. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.