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
Jeanne Ballion, Vogue, 26 Aug. 2025
This whole concluding sequence is meant to look and sound like some weirdo mad scientist stuff, between the androids’ cyberpunk goggles and the squishy noises the wriggling creatures make.
—Noel Murray, Vulture, 20 Aug. 2025
With a short base cut, tapered front locks, and slightly longer layers, the Trinity cut rides the line between a pixie cut and a bob, borrowing from the cyberpunk and boyish aesthetics of the movies.
—Jeanne Ballion, Glamour, 10 Aug. 2025
Now, with his upcoming graphic novel debut Martyr Loser King, the multidisciplinary artist offers his boldest vision yet—a cyberpunk epic that fuses mythology, activism, and Afrofuturism to challenge our relationship with technology, power, and each other.
—Okla Jones, Essence, 14 July 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 8 Sep. 2025.
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