Word Pronunciation & Dictionary

metafiction

Word Rarity Very rare

Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.54 in modern English

Syllables: metafic-tion
IPA

18

Scrabble Score

11

Letters

2

Syllables

9

Unique Chars

Meaning

noun

A form of self-referential literature concerned with the art and devices of fiction itself.

Uncountable

Example Sentences

"Julian Barnes's Flaubert's Parrot (1984) and Peter Ackroyd's Hawksmoor and Chatterton may be described as accomplished examples of historiographic metafiction, the kind of self-conscious, heavily parodic and experimental historical […]"
"In the previous chapter, I presented a heuristic explanation of the development of metafiction. In this chapter, I turn to some texts written before the 1980s to demonstrate that the binary between realism and metafiction is not fixed."

Etymology

From meta- + fiction, coined in 1970 by William H. Gass

Word Breakdown

Prefix: meta

Usage

Uncountable

Inflected Forms

metafictions (plural)

Derived Forms

metafictionist

Phrases

historiographic metafiction

Frequently Paired Words

metafictional metafictive midfiction metatext intertextuality

Questions

What does metafiction mean?: A form of self-referential literature concerned with the art and devices of fiction itself.
Where does metafiction come from?: From meta- + fiction, coined in 1970 by William H. Gass

How to pronounce metafiction

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