Word.ws English Dictionary

clockpunk

clockpunk noun: a subgenre of speculative fiction, based on the technology and society of the Renaissance.

Noun

clockpunk (uncountable)

  1. A subgenre of speculative fiction, based on the technology and society of the Renaissance.
    • The term [steampunk] is also frequently applied to works set in original worlds drawing inspiration from nineteenth century culture and technology, and at times is even used to refer to comparable blends of alternate history and retro-futurism across a much wider historical span (blurring with...2011, Nader Elhefnawy, After the New Wave: Science Fiction Since 1980, Createspace, →ISBN
    • Then sometime in the early 90's^([sic]) came steampunk. Alright, that's a little goofy, but people understood what it meant. It was the "punk"-like hacker culture from cyberpunk using Victorian era, steam based technology. […] But authors couldn't stop there! No, they had to go back further and...2011, Ted Stoltz, Universal Serendipity, Lulu Press, →ISBN, pages 43–44

Examples of clockpunk in a sentence

  • No, they had to go back further and write about clockpunk: hackers in Da Vinci's time making things run on springs and gears and other clockwork.2011, Ted Stoltz, Universal Serendipity, Lulu Press, →ISBN, pages 43–44:
  • Jeter wrote a clockpunk novel in 1987 called Infernal Devices.2013, Lois H. Gresh, The Mortal Instruments Companion, St. Martin's Press, →ISBN, page 132:

Origin of clockpunk

From clock + -punk, from clockwork.

Questions about clockpunk

What does clockpunk mean?
Clockpunk means a subgenre of speculative fiction, based on the technology and society of the Renaissance.
How do you use clockpunk in a sentence?
No, they had to go back further and write about clockpunk: hackers in Da Vinci's time making things run on springs and gears and other clockwork.
What part of speech is clockpunk?
Clockpunk is a noun.

Words near clockpunk in the dictionary

  1. clockmaking
  2. clockmutch
  3. clockmutches
  4. clockpost
  5. clockposts
  6. clockpunk
  7. clockrate
  8. clockrates
  9. clockroom
  10. clockrooms
  11. clocks

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: clockpunk (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.

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