Stories
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sto·ry 1
(stôr′ē)n. pl. sto·ries
1. An account or recital of an event or a series of events, either true or fictitious, as:
a. An account or report regarding the facts of an event or group of events: The witness changed her story under questioning.
b. An anecdote: came back from the trip with some good stories.
c. A lie: told us a story about the dog eating the cookies.
2.
a. A usually fictional prose or verse narrative intended to interest or amuse the hearer or reader; a tale.
b. A short story.
3. The plot of a narrative or dramatic work.
4. A news article or broadcast.
5. Something viewed as or providing material for a literary or journalistic treatment: "He was colorful, he was charismatic, he was controversial, he was a good story" (Terry Ann Knopf).
6. The background information regarding something: What's the story on these unpaid bills?
7. Romantic legend or tradition: a hero known to us in story.
tr.v. sto·ried, sto·ry·ing, sto·ries
1. To decorate with scenes representing historical or legendary events.
2. Archaic To tell as a story.
[Middle English storie, from Old French estorie, estoire, from Latin historia; see history.]
sto·ry 2
(stôr′ē)n. pl. sto·ries
1. A complete horizontal division of a building, constituting the area between two adjacent floors.
2. The set of rooms on the same floor of a building.
[Middle English storie, story, from Medieval Latin historia, picture, story (probably from painted windows or sculpture on the front of buildings), from Latin, history; see history.]
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
Stories
See Also: BOOKS, WRITERS/WRITING
- All circumstances in a tale answer one another like notes in music —Robert Louis Stevenson
- Fiction is like a spider’s web, attached ever so slightly perhaps, but still attached to life at all four corners —Virginia Woolf
- A good story compels you like sexual hunger but the pace is more leisurely —Robert Hass
- A good story is like a bitter pill with the sugar coating inside of it —O. Henry
- A poor story is a good deal like a grist, the oftener it is told, the less there is of it —Josh Billings
In Billings’ dialect this reads: “The oftner it iz told, the less thare iz ov it.”
- Stories are like snapshots … pictures snatched out of time with clean, hard edges —James Crumley
- Stories, like whiskey, must be allowed to mature in the cask —Sean O’Faolain, Atlantic Monthly, December 1956
- Stories that meandered along like lazy streams —George Garrett
- A storyteller is like a ship’s captain. He takes the passengers places where they might laugh or cry, but they always feel safe —Michael Parent, storyteller, New York Times, May 19, 1986
- A story with a moral appended is like the bill of a mosquito. It bores you, and then injects a stinging drop to irritate your conscience —O. Henry
- A tale without love is like beef without mustard —Anatole France
See Also: INCOMPLETENESS
Similes Dictionary, 1st Edition. © 1988 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.