Megillah

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /məˈɡɪlə/

Definitions

1. A long and intricate narrative often filled with numerous details and events
2. An extensive recounting that typically includes a multitude of complex elements and elaborate descriptions
3. An elaborate narrative marked by many details and complex events

Etymology: The Hebrew word "megillah" simply means "scroll," and that plain sense is the root of the English word's surprising trajectory. In Judaism, the Megillah is a handwritten parchment scroll containing one of the biblical books read aloud at a particular festival, most famously the Book of Esther read at Purim. The scroll is long, and reading it aloud takes time, so the sense of a lengthy, drawn-out recitation grew naturally from the object itself. From there the meaning moved into English with a slightly comic edge. Its sense of an overlong, elaborate account of something, full of intricate detail and digression, is the one that stuck. "Magilla" is a doublet of the same Hebrew source, entering English through a different route and carrying the same idea in a looser, more colloquial form. Yiddish speakers carried the word into everyday American English, where it took on its familiar tone of an involved, rambling affair.