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

The Slender Man character is believed to have originated from a 2009 illustration of a tall, thin man with tentacle-like arms and magical abilities that circulated around the Internet via horror stories. —Toria Sheffield, PEOPLE, 23 Nov. 2025

Forming a believable, if troubled, onscreen family with his costars was crucial for Cage, who sees the movie as more of a family drama than a traditional horror story. —Mike Miller, Entertainment Weekly, 13 Nov. 2025

The people who've made it out are telling us horror stories of mass killings, of rape and pillage of women and families. —ABC News, 9 Nov. 2025

Set in a haunted restaurant outside time, the film follows a ghostly host serving four unforgettable horror stories, each centered around a legendary Chinese dish. —Naman Ramachandran, Variety, 5 Nov. 2025

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
• extempore
• feudatory