Word.ws English Dictionary

Doylist

Doylist adjective: from a real-world perspective; of or relating to an explanation outside the text; external to the narrative.

Adjective

Doylist (comparative more Doylist, superlative most Doylist)

  1. (slang) From a real-world perspective; of or relating to an explanation outside the text; external to the narrative.
    • I would accept that many of them behave like humans born on earth would, but that must be an artefact of poor translation or our poor understanding of their motives and objectives [Watsonian] or lack of vision on the writers part [Doylist - to borrow some terms from the Bujold mailing list - think...2000 October 6, Martin Bonham, “Banks was Re: Multi-culturalism in space?”, in rec.arts.sf.written (Usenet), message-ID <970804830.406747@hermes>
    • Roddenberry's official explaination^([sic]) was "They always looked like that. We just didn't have the budjet^([sic]) in the 1960's to show them properly."¶ This is one case where I prefer the Doylist explaination^([sic]).2001 September 30, Rob Wynne, “Re: OK, Enterprise...”, in rec.music.filk (Usenet), message-ID <74Jt7.875$oL3.24397@eagle.america.net>

Noun

Doylist (plural Doylists)

  1. An enthusiast of the works of Arthur Conan Doyle.
    • T. Raymond
      One can imagine the devout Doylist wringing his hands over every fresh appearance of Sir Arthur in the character of an exponent of spiritualism.

Synonyms of Doylist

Antonyms

Forms of Doylist

Adjective
comparativemore Doylist
superlativemost Doylist
alternative formDoyleist
Noun
pluralDoylists

Origin of Doylist

From Doyle + -ist, with reference to Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of the Sherlock Holmes stories. Adjective formed by analogy to Doyle as the real author of the text, as opposed to Dr. John Watson as the fictional author within the text. Started in Sherlock Holmes fandom before spreading to other fandoms. Possibly originating in the "Baker Street Irregulars" fan club and entering the science fiction fandom usage (fanspeak) via the Lois McMaster Bujold mailing list.

Questions about Doylist

What does Doylist mean?
Doylist means from a real-world perspective; of or relating to an explanation outside the text; external to the narrative.
What part of speech is Doylist?
Doylist can be an adjective or a noun.

Words near Doylist in the dictionary

  1. Doyles River
  2. Doylestown
  3. doyley
  4. doyleys
  5. doylies
  6. Doylist
  7. Doylists
  8. doylum
  9. doylums
  10. doyly
  11. Doyne

Source and license

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