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

Whereas Lansing’s treatment of Shackleton’s Antarctic survival epic is stirring, Philbrick’s tale of the Essex is more like a horror story. —Eva Holland, The Atlantic, 30 Apr. 2026

Musgraves and Lambert bonded over something else in their duet, beyond horse riding prowess and marital horror stories. —Chris Willman, Variety, 29 Apr. 2026

Plus sundry hallucinations, bad dreams, possession, dark spaces, creepy noises, fraught family relations — and, as with so many horror stories, a bad thing in the past bringing down the future. —Television Critic, Los Angeles Times, 28 Apr. 2026

Suddenly, the irony of the AI horror stories was becoming clear. —Amanda Gefter, Quanta Magazine, 10 Apr. 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