Genre
Etymology
French "genre" (kind, sort, type), from Latin "genus" (birth, race, kind) — the same root as "gender," "genus," and "generate." A genre is, at root, a family of works sharing a common lineage of features.
noun · /ZHAHN-ruh/
A category of artistic work defined by shared conventions of form, style, or subject.
What it names
The set of expectations a work signs up to — horror, jazz, the sonnet — so you can see how art both fulfills and subverts the rules of its kind.
Example
The film keeps setting up horror-genre scares only to twist each one into a joke.
Related idea
Genre is the kind of work — the category of content and convention; medium is the material or channel it is made in — paint, film, sound. A ghost story is a genre; it can be told in the medium of novel, comic, or film.