western
n. countablen. a movie or book about life in the American West during the 1800s, usually featuring cowboys and horses.
n. a genre of fiction, typically film or literature, set in the American West during the late nineteenth century. Often focuses on themes of frontier justice, lawlessness, and the conflict between settlement and wilderness.
He loves watching an old Western on Sunday afternoons.
The director decided to film a modern Western that explores the harsh reality of life on a cattle ranch.
While the classic Western often relied on clear distinctions between heroes and villains, contemporary examples of the genre frequently subvert these tropes to examine the moral ambiguity of the frontier.
When referring to the genre or a specific work, it is almost always capitalized.