1
: crime fiction featuring hard-boiled cynical characters and bleak sleazy settings
an example of classic noir
2
: film noir
a comedy dressed in the trappings of an edgy noir
: having a bleak and darkly cynical quality of the kind associated with hard-boiled crime fiction and film noir
a noir thriller
In this boldly styled first novel, Komarnicki follows a 30-year-old homeless man on a noir odyssey of death and survival through the streets of New Orleans and Hong Kong.—
Sybil S. Steinberg
Sybil S. SteinbergThe plot of this violent fairy tale is as noir and nasty as the characters.—Marilyn Stasio
Marilyn StasioExamples of noir in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
Literary Hub, 25 Oct. 2025
At the juncture between postwar noir and golden-age melodrama is Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard, a saturnine elegy to a lost Hollywood of the silent era, when faces and charisma were more desirable than voices or talent.
—Erik Morse, Vogue, 23 Oct. 2025
Declan Gallagher, Entertainment Weekly, 30 Oct. 2025
One of many neo-noir gems from the late 1990s, Get Shorty revels in a post-Tarantino, pre-millennial hodgepodge of genres and visual styles with a retro midcentury nostalgia that was particular to the decade’s independent films.
—Erik Morse, Vogue, 23 Oct. 2025
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Noun
Gene Seymour considers Chester Himes’ Harlem noirs.
—Literary Hub, 25 Oct. 2025
At the juncture between postwar noir and golden-age melodrama is Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard, a saturnine elegy to a lost Hollywood of the silent era, when faces and charisma were more desirable than voices or talent.
—Erik Morse, Vogue, 23 Oct. 2025
Adjective
Shiki is a stylish investigative horror series, a neo-noir procedural filtered through the lens of contemporary anime.
—Declan Gallagher, Entertainment Weekly, 30 Oct. 2025
One of many neo-noir gems from the late 1990s, Get Shorty revels in a post-Tarantino, pre-millennial hodgepodge of genres and visual styles with a retro midcentury nostalgia that was particular to the decade’s independent films.
—Erik Morse, Vogue, 23 Oct. 2025
See All Example Sentences for noir
Cite this Entry
“Noir.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/noir. Accessed 4 Nov. 2025.
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