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

While horror stories abound on traffic nightmares across the country, which commutes wind up being the best? —Staff Report, Hartford Courant, 30 Mar. 2025

Viewers were quick to flood the comments with a mix of sympathy and shared horror stories. —Thomas G. Moukawsher, Newsweek, 21 Mar. 2025

Her friends say that people have moved to Mariupol from the Russian republics, and tell her horror stories about life there now. —Kim Barker, New York Times, 14 Feb. 2025

Equal parts survival epic, psychological horror story and coming-of-age drama, Yellowjackets is the saga of a team of wildly talented high school girls soccer players who become the (un)lucky survivors of a plane crash deep in the remote northern wilderness. —Matt Grobar, Deadline, 28 Jan. 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