Word.ws English Dictionary

plot coupon

plot coupon noun: an object sought by a character in a story in order to achieve some objective, having little purpose beyond advancing the plot.

Noun

plot coupon (plural plot coupons)

  1. (slang) An object sought by a character in a story in order to achieve some objective, having little purpose beyond advancing the plot.
    • […] pain to see Clute single-handedly tackle multi-volume fantasy extrusion-product, with its flimsy plot coupons and its stale eucatastrophes.2004, Foundation, volume 33, numbers 90-92, page 126

Forms of plot coupon

pluralplot coupons

Origin of plot coupon

Coined by critic Nick Lowe.

Questions about plot coupon

What does plot coupon mean?
Plot coupon means an object sought by a character in a story in order to achieve some objective, having little purpose beyond advancing the plot.
What part of speech is plot coupon?
Plot coupon is a noun.
What is the plural of plot coupon?
The plural of plot coupon is plot coupons.

Words near plot coupon in the dictionary

  1. plot
  2. plot armor
  3. plot armour
  4. plot bunnies
  5. plot bunny
  6. plot coupon
  7. plot coupons
  8. plot device
  9. plot devices
  10. plot hole
  11. plot holes

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: plot coupon (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-plot coupon.wav.

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