• (British) IPA: /ˈstɔː.ɹi/
• (America) IPA: /ˈstɔ.ɹi/

From Middle English storie, storye, from Anglo-Norman estorie by aphesis.

story (plural stories)

1. An account of real or fictional events.

   Synonyms: tome

   • 1673, William Temple, An Essay upon the Advancement of Trade in Ireland:

     ...it must be exploded for fabulous, with other relics of ancient story...

   • June 1861, Edinburgh Review, The Kingdom of Italy

     Venice, with its unique city and its impressive story...

   • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter I, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC ↗:

     The stories did not seem to me to touch life. They were plainly intended to have a bracing moral effect, and perhaps had this result for the people at whom they were aimed. They left me with the impression of a well-delivered stereopticon lecture, with characters about as life-like as the shadows on the screen, and whisking on and off, at the mercy of the operator.

   • 2006 Feb. 17, Graham Linehan, The IT Crowd, Season 1, Episode 4:

     So, what happened?
     It's quite a long story actually...
     Really? Don't worry about it then.

   The book tells the story of two roommates.
2. A lie, fiction.

   Synonyms: Thesaurus:lie

   You’ve been telling stories again, haven’t you?

3. (US, colloquial, usually pluralized) A soap opera.

   Synonyms: serial

   What will she do without being able to watch her stories?

   • 1991, Stephen King, Needful Things:

     He stood on the doorstep for a minute, listening for sounds inside the house — a radio, a TV tuned to one of the stories […]

4. (obsolete) History.
   • 1644, John Milton, Areopagitica; a Speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of Unlicenc'd Printing, to the Parlament of England, London: [s.n.], →OCLC ↗:

     […] who is so unread or so uncatechis'd in story, that hath not heard of many sects refusing books as a hindrance, and preserving their doctrine unmixt for many ages, only by unwritt'n traditions.

5. A sequence of events, or a situation, such as might be related in an account.

   Synonyms: narrative

   What's the story with him?

   I tried it again; same story, no error message, nothing happened.

   The images it captured help tell a story of extreme loss: 25 percent of its ice and four of its 19 glaciers have disappeared since 1957.

6. (social media, sometimes, capitalized) A chronological collection of pictures or short videos published by a user on an application or website that is typically only available for a short period.
7. (computing) Ellipsis of user story

• French: histoire, conte
• German: Erzählung, Geschichte
• Italian: racconto, storia, aneddoto, vicenda
• Portuguese: estória, história, conto
• Russian: расска́з
• Spanish: relato, cuento, crónica, historia

• Russian: исто́рия

story (stories, present participle storying; simple past and past participle storied)

1. (transitive) To tell as a story; to relate or narrate about.
   • 1611 April (first recorded performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC ↗, [Act I, scene v]:

     How worthy he is I will leave to appear hereafter, rather than story him in his own hearing.

   • 1648, John Wilkins, Mathematical Magick:

     It is storied of the brazen colossus in Rhodes, that it was seventy cubits high.

2. (ambitransitive, social media, sometimes, capitalized) To post a story chronological collection of pictures or short videos on an application or website.

Alternative form of what's the story

1. (idiomatic, Ireland, Dublin) , short for what's the story?

story (plural stories)

1. (chiefly US, Philippines) Alternative spelling of storey.

   Our shop was on the fourth story of the building, so we had to install an elevator.

   • 1900, Charles W[addell] Chesnutt, chapter I, in The House Behind the Cedars, Boston, Mass.; New York, N.Y.: Houghton, Mifflin and Company […], →OCLC ↗:

     The lower story of the market-house was open on all four of its sides to the public square.

1. Surname.
2. An unincorporated community in Montgomery County, Arkansas.
3. An unincorporated community in Van Buren Township, Brown County.
4. A ghost town in St. Clair County, Missouri.
5. An unincorporated community in Sioux County, Nebraska.
6. A census-designated place in Sheridan County, Wyoming.