cyberpunk
noun
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Cyberpunk and Literature
In science fiction circles, "cyberpunk" is a genre that often features countercultural antiheroes trapped in a dehumanizing high-tech future. Its roots extend back to the technical fiction of the 1940s and '50s, but it was years before it matured. The word cyberpunk was coined by writer Bruce Bethke, who wrote a story with that title in 1980. He created the term by combining "cybernetics," the science of replacing human functions with computerized ones, and "punk," the raucous music and nihilistic sensibility that became a youth culture in the 1970s and '80s. Not until the 1984 publication of William Gibson's novel, Neuromancer, however, did "cyberpunk" really take off as a term or a genre.
Examples of cyberpunk in a Sentence
Borys Kit, HollywoodReporter, 27 June 2025
Pair it with: Akudama Drive for another recent and tragic cyberpunk story.
—Rafael Motamayor, Vulture, 4 June 2025
The same cyberpunk aesthetic that has defined countless Asus ROG products over recent years returns, including the Anime Matrix RGB lighting across the monitor cabinet’s back.
—PC Magazine, 30 May 2025
Streaming on Crunchyroll Crunchyroll Also check out: Ghost in the Shell and its sequel film for more existentialism and cyberpunk sci-fi classics.
—Kambole Campbell, Vulture, 25 Apr. 2025
See All Example Sentences for cyberpunk
Cite this Entry
“Cyberpunk.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cyberpunk. Accessed 18 Jul. 2025.
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