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 photographers and their cameras, scene by scene, threaten to turn Carolyn and John’s American love story into a horror story. —Megan Garber, The Atlantic, 9 Mar. 2026

All Alawite children have had the experience of going to bed afraid after hearing horror stories of the violence under Ottoman rule. —Literary Hub, 4 Mar. 2026

Social media has since carried horror stories of recruits subjected to abuse and sent to the front line with minimal training. —Yinka Adegoke, semafor.com, 25 Feb. 2026

Now the question is whether that record-breaking haul might be enough to catapult Ryan Coogler’s genre-defying American horror story to a best picture Oscar victory. —Glenn Whipp, Los Angeles Times, 23 Feb. 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
• extempore
• feudatory