narrative

UK/ˈnæɹ.ə.tɪv/

nounB2+Common in everyday speech and writing · #8,175 of 15,258mostly written

Other forms: narratives

A narrative is an account of connected events. A clear narrative, the official narrative, control the narrative.

In politics the word has become a way of saying story without saying untrue — controlling the narrative means deciding which facts get connected to which. In fiction, narrative is the connecting itself, as against plot, which is what happens. The Latin means to relate.

Definitions of narrative

1nounnarrativeAn account of connected events.B2+
“The book is a gripping narrative of the family's escape across the mountains.”

narrative is an account.

Where it comes from

Latin narrativus comes from narrare, to relate, from gnarus, knowing. To narrate is to make known.

Proto-Indo-European
*ǵneh₃-
Latin
narrātīvus
Middle French
narratif
gmw-msc
narrative
English, today
narrative

Built from

narrō · Latin — to narrate

gmw-msc narrative, nerrative, from Middle French narratif, from Latin narrātīvus, from narrō (“to narrate”). by surface analysis, narr- + -ate + -ive.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Word Building

Practise this word

narrative in the wild

A legend is a genre of folklore that consists of a narrative featuring human actions, believed or perceived to have taken place in human history.
Legend
The plot is the series of related events in a narrative.
Plot (narrative)
Some narrative poetry takes the form of a novel in verse.
Narrative poetry
In terms of narrative poetry, romance is a narrative poem that tells a story of chivalry.
Narrative poetry
The frame story may be used to inform readers about aspects of the secondary narrative(s) that may otherwise be hard to understand.
Frame story

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

From Project Gutenberg, public domain. These sentences are from real books, shown to illustrate the word at work.

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