Word.ws English Dictionary

penny dreadfuls

penny dreadfuls is the plural of penny dreadful.

Meaning of penny dreadful

Noun

penny dreadful (plural penny dreadfuls)

  1. A cheap paperback book, particularly those concerning lurid depictions of crime in the Victorian era.
    • They can read the ‘penny dreadful’, but they cannot darn their stockings or mend their shoes.1861 July 29, North American Review
  2. Pulp fiction: stories written in the lurid style of the penny dreadfuls.

Questions about penny dreadfuls

What is penny dreadfuls the plural of?
Penny dreadfuls is the plural of penny dreadful.

Words near penny dreadfuls in the dictionary

  1. penny chew
  2. penny chews
  3. penny dog
  4. penny dogs
  5. penny dreadful
  6. penny dreadfuls
  7. penny fall
  8. penny falls
  9. penny farthing
  10. penny farthings
  11. penny for them

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: penny dreadfuls (page history and authors); penny dreadful (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: “penny dreadfuls.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/penny_dreadfuls. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.