Other forms: settings
The setting of a story is where and when it happens — the place you build behind your eyes while you read. A cold northern town in 1890. A spaceship. One kitchen over one weekend. Change the setting and the same plot comes out a different story.
Outside books, a setting is whatever surroundings something sits in: a hotel in a mountain setting, a school in a rural setting. It is also the position you put a control in — the oven has a low setting, the washing machine has a setting for wool, and your phone keeps its settings in a menu you can never find twice. Jewellers use the word for the little metal frame that grips a stone in a ring. And the plainest sense of all survives at dinner: a table setting is the plate, the knife and the fork laid out for one person.
1nounsettingThe place and time in which a story happens.~71%
“The setting is a fishing village in winter.”
2nounpositionThe position a control or a machine is put in.~2%
“Put the oven on its lowest setting.”
3nounsurroundingsThe surroundings something is found in.~25%
“The hotel has a beautiful setting above the lake.”
4nounmetalThe metal frame that holds a stone in a ring.~2%
“The diamond had come loose in its setting.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 140 sentences found in the wild and placed 67 of them on a sense (73 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.