Word.ws English Dictionary

space opera

space opera noun: a subgenre of speculative fiction or science fiction that emphasizes space travel, romantic adventure, and larger-than-life characters often set against vast exotic settings.

Noun

space opera (countable and uncountable, plural space operas)

  1. (initially derogatory) A subgenre of speculative fiction or science fiction that emphasizes space travel, romantic adventure, and larger-than-life characters often set against vast exotic settings.
    • SUGGESTION DEPT: In these hectic days of phrase-coining, we offer one. Westerns are called "horse operas", the morning housewife tear-jerkers are called "soap operas". For the hacky, grinding, stinking, outworn space-ship yarn, or world-saving for that matter, we offer "space opera"1941 January, "Bob" Tucker, “Archived copy”, in Le Zombie, number 36, archived from the original on 13 May 2008, page 9
    • A new Netflix TV series of Star Trek has been rumoured. And Christopher Nolan is sending Matthew McConaughey through a wormhole in his new film, Interstellar. Could the space opera be making a comeback?2014 June 12, Nicholas Barber, “Out of this world: are space operas making a comeback?”, in The Guardian, →ISSN
  2. A subgenre of speculative fiction or science fiction that uses serialization.
  3. (countable) A work or production in this style.

Forms of space opera

pluralspace operas

Origin of space opera

Coined by American writer Wilson Tucker in 1941, modelled on horse opera (“western”) and soap opera, see quotations. Originally describing a specific, hackneyed science fiction writing style.

Questions about space opera

What does space opera mean?
Space opera means a subgenre of speculative fiction or science fiction that emphasizes space travel, romantic adventure, and larger-than-life characters often set against vast exotic settings.
What part of speech is space opera?
Space opera is a noun.
What is the plural of space opera?
The plural of space opera is space operas.

Words near space opera in the dictionary

  1. space nations
  2. space navigation
  3. space of Destot
  4. space of Disse
  5. space oil
  6. space opera
  7. space operas
  8. space out
  9. space perception
  10. space permeability
  11. space polar coordinate

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: space opera (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-space opera.wav.

Cite this entry: “space opera.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/space_opera. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.