story noun

1 account of events/people, true or invented

ADJ. true | plausible | false, made-up She told the police a false story about being attacked. | apocryphal | cock-and-bull, tall No one would believe such a tall story. | official The official story was that the singer had broken his arm falling in the shower. | wild | convincing | charming, compelling, delightful, dramatic, exciting, fantastic, fascinating, good, great, interesting, intriguing, nice, wonderful | amazing, bizarre, colourful, crazy, extraordinary, incredible, outrageous, remarkable, strange | inspiring | amusing, entertaining, funny | epic the epic story of a family's escape from war | complex, elaborate | straightforward | awful, horrific, horrifying, nasty, shocking, terrible, tragic | sorry His life was a sorry story of betrayal and rejection. | depressing, heart-rending, moving, poignant, sad | improbable The film tells the improbable story of a monkey that becomes a politician. | well known | familiar the familiar story of a star who turns to drink and drugs | popular There is one popular story in the village of a man-eating cat that lives in the forest. | life, success She told them her life story. | hard-luck, rags-to-riches He was boring people with more of his hard-luck stories. The film is the rags-to-riches story of a country girl who becomes a famous singer. | after-dinner | coherent The film lacks a coherent story. | full, whole I suspected he hadn't told us the whole story. | short a collection of short stories | children's | classic | bedtime | mythical, mythological | adventure, Bible, biblical, crime, detective, fairy, ghost, horror, love, private-eye, spy, suspense

QUANT. fragment We had difficulty in piecing together the fragments of her story. | collection a collection of stories by modern writers

VERB + STORY read (sb) My dad sometimes read me a story at bedtime. | write | narrate, recount, relate, tell (sb) | embellish, embroider | believe The police didn't believe her story. | stick to We must stick to our story about the accident. | change At first he denied everything, but then he changed his story and said it was an accident. | swap We swapped stories about our worst teachers. | circulate, spread

STORY + VERB abound, circulate, get about, go around/round, spread Stories abound of vandalism and looting. A story was going round that the factory was in line for closure. | emerge | begin, open, start The story opens with a man hiding from the police under a woman's skirt. | progress, unfold The motives of the hero become clearer as the story unfolds. | end | be called sth, be entitled sth | be set in … The story is set in Poland in the 1930s. | be based on sth | concern sth, involve sth, revolve around sth | contain sth | illustrate sth This story illustrates the dangers of living on credit.

STORY + NOUN teller(also storyteller) | telling (also storytelling) | line (also storyline) His novels always have the same basic storyline.

PREP. ~ about a story about time travel | ~ of the story of the Beatles

PHRASES but that's another story Many years later I returned to Africa but that's another story (= I am not going to talk about it now). | it's a long story ‘How come you've only got one shoe on?’ ‘It's a long story.’ | sb's half/side of the story The teacher punished me without listening to my side of the story. | so the story goes, the story goes that … (= used to describe what people are saying although it may not be correct) She never saw him again?or so the story goes. | the story of my life Out of work with no money?that's the story of my life. | to cut a long story short Anyway, to cut a long story short (= not to give all the details), we had this argument and I haven't seen him since. | a version of a story According to Rachel's version of the story, they threw the key in the river.

2 report in a newspaper, etc.

ADJ. big, top The biggest story of the day was the signing of the peace agreement. And now back to our top story tonight … | exclusive | main | full Full story on page 3. | scare scare stories about the harmful effects of the vaccination | inside The magazine gives the inside story of life in a rock band. | sensational | lurid, sordid, spicy lurid stories of politicians' sexual adventures | cover, front-page, lead The magazine chose the peace process as its cover story. | news

VERB + STORY file, write More than one correspondent filed a story about the incident. | carry, print, publish, run Every newspaper carried the story.

PREP. ~ about, ~ of the story of his arrest

You can also check other dicts: story (English, 中文解释 ), wordnet sense, Collins Definition

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