Word.ws English Dictionary

hopepunk

hopepunk noun: a genre of speculative fiction with an emphasis on optimism, compassion, or non-violence.

Noun

hopepunk (uncountable)

  1. A genre of speculative fiction with an emphasis on optimism, compassion, or non-violence.
    • Hopepunk holds particular resonance to the youth of today because it touches upon how their lives "are precariously close to dystopic visions but who need to tell and hear stories of triumph in adversity, not defeat by cruelty", he added.2019 June 9, Izzy Lyons, “BBC jumps on 'hopepunk' trend with new positive podcast for millennials who don't want 'dark' dramas”, in The Telegraph
    • Doctor Who has always been hopepunk in spirit – it’s essentially a series about a non-violent crimefighter, after all – but its most recent series was its most hopepunk yet.2019 June 10, Stuart Heritage, “In need of relentless optimism? The 10 best ‘hopepunk’ shows to binge now”, in The Guardian
    Antonyms:
    grimdark

Antonyms of hopepunk

Origin of hopepunk

From hope + -punk. Coined by Alexandra Rowland in 2017 as opposite to grimdark.

Questions about hopepunk

What does hopepunk mean?
Hopepunk means a genre of speculative fiction with an emphasis on optimism, compassion, or non-violence.
What part of speech is hopepunk?
Hopepunk is a noun.

Words near hopepunk in the dictionary

  1. hopemonger
  2. hopemongers
  3. hopene
  4. hopenes
  5. hopenosis
  6. hopepunk
  7. hoper
  8. hopers
  9. hopes
  10. hopes against hope
  11. Hopesay

Source and license

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