horror story

noun

: an account of an unsettling or unfortunate occurrence

heard horror stories about recent layoffs

also : something unsettling or unfortunate

his childhood was a horror story

Examples of horror story in a Sentence

We've all heard horror stories about airlines losing people's luggage.

Her childhood was a horror story.

Recent Examples on the Web

ProPublica’s reporting chronicled the rise of the procedures after the introduction of the government’s financial incentive, along with horror stories of patients who lost their legs or died from complications. —Annie Waldman, ProPublica, 29 May 2026

The tainting of that optimism is its own kind of American horror story. —Hunter Ingram, Variety, 27 May 2026

Both horror stories have simple plots but are more complex in their attitudes toward marrying for money or power or security. —Judy Berman, Time, 27 May 2026

But the twists of their saga, as laid out this week in a federal indictment, are closer to a horror story – with pistol-whipping, lives threatened and people tied up in their own homes. —Andy Rose, CNN Money, 14 May 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1937, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for horror story

• allegory
• amatory
• auditory
• category
• clerestory
• crematory
• desultory
• dilatory
• dormitory
• excretory
• feudatory
• gustatory