Word.ws English Dictionary

true crime

true crime noun: a nonfiction literary and film genre in which the author examines an actual crime and details the actions of real people.

Noun

true crime (countable and uncountable, plural true crimes)

  1. (uncountable) A nonfiction literary and film genre in which the author examines an actual crime and details the actions of real people.
  2. (countable) A particular work of this genre.
  3. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see true, crime.
    • It's never a true crime unless it's committed with style.

Forms of true crime

pluraltrue crimes

Questions about true crime

What does true crime mean?
True crime means a nonfiction literary and film genre in which the author examines an actual crime and details the actions of real people.
What part of speech is true crime?
True crime is a noun.
What is the plural of true crime?
The plural of true crime is true crimes.

Words near true crime in the dictionary

  1. true colors
  2. true colours
  3. true copy
  4. true crab
  5. true crabs
  6. true crime
  7. true crimes
  8. True Cross
  9. true daikon
  10. true dat
  11. true deer

Source and license

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