story

Universal Words noun (plural stories) 1 ~ (about / of sth/sb) a description of events and people that the writer or speaker has invented in order to entertain people: adventure / detective / love stories * a book of short stories * a story about time travel * Shall I tell you a story? * He read the children a story. * a bedtime story seealsoFAIRYSTORY, GHOSTSTORY, SHORTSTORY 2 ~ (about / of sth/sb) an account, often spoken, of what happened to sb or of how sth happened: It was many years before the full story was made public. * The police didn't believe her story. * We must stick to our story about the accident. * I can't decide until I've heard both sides of the story. * It's a story of courage. * Many years later I returned to Africa but that's another story (= I am not going to talk about it now). seealsoCOCKANDBULLSTORY, HARD-LUCKSTORY, LIFESTORY, SHAGGY-DOGSTORY, SOBSTORY, SUCCESSSTORY, TALLSTORY 3 an account of past events or of how sth has developed: He told us the story of his life. * the story of the Beatles * the story of the building of the bridge 4 a report in a newspaper, magazine or news broadcast: a front-page story * Now for a summary of tonight's main news stories. seealsoCOVERSTORY, LEADSTORY 5 (also storyline) the series of events in a book, film/movie, play, etc. SYNPLOT: Her novels always have the same basic story. 6 (informal) something that sb says which is not true: She knew the child had been telling stories again. 7 (AmE) = STOREY IDIOMS the story goes (that)...