Story

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˈstɔː.ɹi/

Definitions

1. A recounting of events or experiences that may be true or imagined, often structured to communicate a message or entertain an audience
2. A narrative form that tells about a sequence of events, whether factual or fictional, with the aim of engaging or educating
3. A description of events as experienced or told by someone ; a crafted tale that conveys a plot and characters ; information presented as news or gossip

Etymology: The word "story" is a fine example of a single idea splitting into two. Its ancestor is Ancient Greek "historia", meaning "learning through research" or inquiry, which Latin borrowed as "historia". That same Latin word gave English "history", which kept the sense of a record of past events. "Story" took a shorter route: it came through Old French "estorie" and Anglo-Norman "estorie", where the opening "h" and the initial syllable were lost, a process called aphesis, before arriving in Middle English as "storie" and "storye". Because of this, "story" and "history" are doublets: two words from the same source that entered the language by different paths and drifted apart in meaning. "Storey", the floor of a building, is a third doublet from the same root, which is why the spelling and sense of the tale-telling word and the building-level word diverged even though they share an ancestor.

Synonyms: tale, narrative, account, chronicle, fable

Antonyms: truth, fact, reality