Word.ws English Dictionary

shilling shocker

shilling shocker noun: a cheap paperback book produced for the mass market in 19th-century Britain, often consolidating twelve to fifteen episodes of a serial novel whose chapters had previously been published separately as penny dreadful pamphlets, and typically focused on crime and violence.

Noun

shilling shocker (plural shilling shockers)

  1. (UK, historical) A cheap paperback book produced for the mass market in 19th-century Britain, often consolidating twelve to fifteen episodes of a serial novel whose chapters had previously been published separately as penny dreadful pamphlets, and typically focused on crime and violence.

Forms of shilling shocker

pluralshilling shockers

Origin of shilling shocker

From the price of one shilling, and the shocking content.

Questions about shilling shocker

What does shilling shocker mean?
Shilling shocker means a cheap paperback book produced for the mass market in 19th-century Britain, often consolidating twelve to fifteen episodes of a serial novel whose chapters had previously been published separately as penny dreadful pamphlets, and typically focused on crime and violence.
What part of speech is shilling shocker?
Shilling shocker is a noun.
What is the plural of shilling shocker?
The plural of shilling shocker is shilling shockers.

Words near shilling shocker in the dictionary

  1. shillig-a-bookas
  2. shillin'
  3. shilling
  4. shilling mark
  5. shilling marks
  6. shilling shocker
  7. shilling shockers
  8. shilling sign
  9. shilling signs
  10. Shillingburg
  11. Shillingburgs

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: shilling shocker (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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