noir

1 of 2

noun

ˈnwär 

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

noirish

ˈnwär-ish 

adjective

noir

2 of 2

adjective

: 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

The plot of this violent fairy tale is as noir and nasty as the characters.

—Marilyn Stasio

Examples of noir in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

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

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

Amazingly, Ari Aster’s satirical neo-noir Western Eddington was wrapped months before the new Republican administration came to power, wielding alternative facts as its main artillery in the fight for the soul of the American people. —Damon Wise, Deadline, 16 Oct. 2025

Word History

Etymology

Noun

short for film noir

First Known Use

Noun

1977, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Adjective

1958, in the meaning defined above

Phrases Containing noir

• beurre noir
• film noir
• pinot noir

Rhymes for noir

• moire
• boudoir