Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Thriller |
ThrillerNoun1. A suspenseful adventure story. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
A thriller is a genre of fiction in which a tough, resourceful, but essentially ordinary hero is pitted against villains determined to destroy him, his country, or the stability of the free world. The hero of a typical thriller faces danger alone or in the company of a small band of companions. He may be a policeman, an intelligence agent, or a soldier, but he is typically cut off from the resources of "his" organization. More often he is an ordinary citizen drawn into danger and intrigue by circumstances beyond his control. Thrillers are typically novels or movies, though television series such as Macgyver (US), 24 (US), and The Sandbaggers (UK) also fall into the genre. A thriller often incorporates elements of other genres such as adventure, detective, and war stories, but it is a distinct genre.
Novelists closely associated with the genre include: John Buchan. Alistair MacLean, Frederick Forsyth, Duncan Kyle, Jack Higgins, and Christopher Hyde.
Notable movie thrillers include: The Thirty-Nine Steps, North by Northwest, The Day of the Jackal, Duel, The Parallax View, In the Line of Fire, and The River Wild.
See also: Thriller film, Techno-thriller
Thriller (1982) is an album by pop star Michael Jackson, and produced by Quincy Jones. It is also the name of the title track on that album. The song "Thriller" was also made into a very popular music video, featuring a voice over by Vincent Price. The song "Beat It" features a guitar solo by Eddie van Halen.
Track listing
- "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'"
- "Baby Be Mine"
- "The Girl is Mine" (with Paul McCartney)
- "Thriller"
- "Beat It"
- "Billie Jean"
- "Human Nature"
- "P.Y.T (Pretty Young Thing)"
- "The Lady In My Life"
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Thriller."
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Thriller films are movies that primarily uses exciting action and tension to engage the audience. For example, the film Natural Born Killers.
A thriller emphasizes nervous tension and anxiety. This is distinct from a horror movie which emphasizes fear, or an action movie which emphasizes exhilaration.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Thriller film."
Crosswords: Thriller |
| Non-English Usage: "Thriller" is also a word in the following languages with English translations in parentheses. French (thriller), German (thriller), Italian (spine-chiller, thriller), Swedish (thriller). |
| Domain | Usage | |
Lyrics | 'Cause this is thriller, thriller night (Thriller; performing artist: Michael Jackson) | |
Movie/TV Titles | Thriller (1974) Thriller (2002) The Car Man: An Auto-Erotic Thriller (2001) What Lies Beneath: Constructing the Perfect Thriller (2000) Hell: A Cyberpunk Thriller (1995) | |
Song Titles | Thriller (performing artist: Michael Jackson) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title |
Books | |
Theater & Movies | |
Music |
|
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Play | Caption |
 | Suspense; anxiety; apprehension; chiller; cliff-hanger; expectancy; expectation; grabber; hesitancy; hesitation; impatience; indecision; indecisiveness; insecurity; irresolution; page-turner; perplexity; potboiler; tension; thriller; uncertainty; tense; i. |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Health | An avid reader, Peggy couldn't put down the new mystery thriller. (references) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "Thriller" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 99.71% of the time. "Thriller" is used about 342 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 99.71% | 341 | 15,501 |
| Noun (proper) | 0.29% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Total | 100.00% | 342 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expression using "thriller": crime thriller. Additional references. | |
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "thriller": thriller-style, thriller-writer. | |
Ending with "thriller": comedy-thriller, euro-thriller, horror-thriller, part-thriller. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Language | Translations for "thriller"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | melodramë (melodrama), film plot emocione. (various references) | |
Arabic | فلم مثيرة, مسرحية مثيرة, قصة مثيرة (dreadful). (various references) | |
Bulgarian | мелодрама (melodrama). (various references) | |
Chinese | 恐怖 (grisly, horror, terror). (various references) | |
Czech | napínavý román, napínavý film, detektivka (detective novel, detective story). (various references) | |
Farsi | مختلج , مرتعش کننده (Vibrator), بلرزه دراورنده . (various references) | |
Finnish | jännäri ("whodunit"). (various references) | |
French | thriller, roman suspense, pièce suspense, film suspense. (various references) | |
German | Reißer (big seller, hot item, shocker, thrillers), Krimi (crime film, crime movie, crime series, crime thriller, detective novel, murder mystery, mystery novel, mystery story, whodunit), Schauerroman (shocker), Schauergeschichte (gothic tale, horror story, scarestory). (various references) | |
Greek | συγκινών, φιλμ αγωνίασ, εντυπωσιακό έργο, θρίλερ. (various references) | |
Hebrew | מותחן, מרטיט (plangent), ספור מתח, סרט מתח. (various references) | |
Hungarian | rémregény (gothic novel, penny dreadful, shilling dreadful), krimi (detective story, thrill). (various references) | |
Italian | thriller (spine-chiller). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | スリラー " (slew rate, Sri Lanka, thrill, thrilling, through, throughput), スリ 化 (streamlining, thinning). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | スリラーえいが, スリラー . (various references) | |
Korean | 스릴러. (various references) | |
Manx | lioar ta cur er creau (thriller book). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | illerthray.(various references) | |
Romanian | film poliţist, film de aventuri. (various references) | |
Russian | сенсационный фильм, сенсационная постановка, триллер. (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | triler (shake, trill). (various references) | |
Spanish | novela escalofriante, novela de suspense, novela de misterio. (various references) | |
Swedish | sensationsfilm. (various references) | |
Turkish | heyecanlı oyun, heyecanlı hikâye (shocker). (various references) | |
Ukrainian | сенсаційний фільм, мелодрама (melodrama, soaper). (various references) | |
Vietnamese | truyện trinh thám (mystery), câu chuyện ly kỳ (thrill). (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "thriller": thrillers. (additional references) | |
Words ending with "thriller": superthriller. (additional references) | |
Words containing "thriller": superthrillers. (additional references) | |
| |
"Thriller" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: thiller, thrilet, thuribles, triller, Truller, Tyroler. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "thriller" (pronounced thri"ler) |
| 4 | -r i" l er | driller. |
| 3 | -i" l er | biller, chiller, distiller, filler, Giller, Hiller, killer, Miller, pillar, Schiller, Siller, Spiller, stiller, tiller, Willer. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "e-h-i-l-l-r-r-t" | |
-1 letter: triller. | |
-2 letters: hiller, lither, rillet, thrill, tiller. | |
-3 letters: hirer, iller, ither, liter, lithe, litre, relit, rille, their, thill, thirl, tiler, trier, trill. | |
-4 letters: elhi, heil, heir, hell, herl, hill, hilt, hire, lehr, lier, lilt, lire, lite, riel, rile, rill, rite, tell, thir, tier, tile, till, tire, tirl. | |
-5 letters: ell, err, eth, her, het, hie, hit. | |
| Words containing the letters "e-h-i-l-l-r-r-t" | |
+1 letter: thrillers. | |
+4 letters: rhetorically. | |
+5 letters: superthriller. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Crosswords 3. Usage: Modern 4. Usage: Commercial | 5. Sounds 6. Quotations: Non-fiction 7. Usage Frequency 8. Expressions | 9. Expressions: Internet 10. Translations: Modern 11. Derivations 12. Rhymes | 13. Anagrams 14. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
