Listicle

Origin

listarticle

Full definition of listicle

Noun

1. An article based around a list.
• 2014 January–February, Arika Okrent, “The listicle as literary form”^{http://web.archive.org/web/20140201141239/https://mag.uchicago.edu/arts-humanities/listicle-literary-form}

• These days, as a language columnist for online publications the Week and Mental Floss, I mostly write listicles. A listicle is an article in the form of a list. I'd like to think the ones I do count among the nobler examples of the genre—less "15 Best Butts in Hollywood," more "12 Mind-Blowing Number Systems from Other Languages." There's nothing about the form of the listicle itself that prevents it from dealing with highbrow or important subjects, and increasingly, news of all kinds is being delivered in this form ("11 Architectural Innovations that Made the Modern City Possible," "7 Supreme Court Cases that Could Change the Country," and so on).
• 4 April 2014, Tess VandenDolder, Gawker makes a massive mistake by cutting back on Internet slang, In the process of raising the bar on Gawker’s overall style, Read also took a dig at the publication's bitter rival, Buzzfeed. The site that essentially invented the listicle is known for compiling posts that consist of pretty much nothing but internet slang and GIFs of cats.
• 7 April 2014, Megan Garber, Victorian Buzzfeed: 'The 25 Stages From Courtship to Marriage': Here's a listicle from the 19th century that pokes fun at ... listicles, The Internet did not invent the listicle. Lists-as-arguments—lists-as-stories—have, of course, been around since long, long before Buzzfeed came along. And they haven't just been around; they've also been both playing with and poking fun at the list form itself, one item at a time. I mention that because the Public Domain Review has unearthed this gem, "The 25 Stages from Courtship to Marriage," a set of hand-tinted stereographs depicting a sampling of those stages, generally from the perspective of the woman being courted. The cards are undated, PDR notes, but they mostly likely originated in the late 19th century.
• 14 April 2014, Brett LoGiurato, The State Department put out another listicle of Putin's 'Top 10' lies on Ukraine, In the listicle-esque fact sheet, the State Department went after 10 more of Russia's "false claims," this time coming amid Russian advances into eastern Ukraine. Among other points, this fact sheet pushes back against Russian claims that it has nothing to do with the unrest, that the Ukrainian government is responsible for targeting otherwise "peaceful" protesters, and that it has ordered a "partial drawdown" of the massive troop buildup at the Ukrainian border.

Usage notes

Such articles often feature a cardinal number in the title, as in “10 Best Movies of the Year” or “7 Ways to Spice up your Sex Life”.

Related terms

• charticle