Besides its original meaning, "of or relating to the Goths, a Germanic tribe" and thus the Gothic language and the Gothic alphabet, and aside from its Early Modern connotations of "rough, barbarous," the word Gothic has been used since the 18th century to refer to distinctly different things.

Below are some of the things that Gothic can mean:

• A style of northern European architecture, see Gothic architecture, Gothic art (for the corresponding style in other art forms). See also: International Gothic, Gothic revival.
• A British literary genre from the late 18th and early 19th century, with a Victorian revival a hundred years later: see Gothic novel.
• Another name for Blackletter, a script developed in the Middle Ages.
• Another name for sans-serif typefaces.
• In the 20th century the word came into use for a certain lifestyle (see Goth), music (see Gothic rock), and fashion (see Gothic fashion).
• A roleplaying computer game: Gothic (computer game)
• Gothic, a 1986 film by Ken Russell.
• Gothic , an album released by the heavy metal/goth metal band Paradise Lost in 1992.
• Japanese Gothic typeface is a common printing style in Japanese printing.
• A chess variant: Gothic Chess.