Word.ws English Dictionary

dark romance

dark romance noun: a book genre featuring romantic relationships in which characters act in unethical or abusive ways.

Noun

dark romance (uncountable)

  1. (neologism) A book genre featuring romantic relationships in which characters act in unethical or abusive ways.
    • Contrary to fears that dark romance promotes violence or unhealthy relationships, many readers engage critically with these narratives.2024 November 19, Magali Bigey, “Reading dark romance: The ambiguities of a fascinating genre”, in The Conversation, archived from the original on 03 Nov 2025
    • What's calming for one person might be a nightmare for others, which is why dark romance as it's currently understood has often been a genre found easiest through authors who self publish.2025 February 11, CT Jones, “Why BookTok Is Absolutely Obsessed With Dark Romance”, in Rolling Stone, New York, N.Y.: Penske Media Corporation, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 26 Feb 2025

Questions about dark romance

What does dark romance mean?
Dark romance means a book genre featuring romantic relationships in which characters act in unethical or abusive ways.
What part of speech is dark romance?
Dark romance is a noun.

Words near dark romance in the dictionary

  1. dark pools
  2. dark post
  3. dark posts
  4. dark ride
  5. dark rides
  6. dark romance
  7. dark room
  8. dark rooms
  9. dark satanic mill
  10. dark satanic mills
  11. dark sector

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dark romance (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: “dark romance.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dark_romance. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.