Anna Karenina
Americannoun
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Anna Karenina begins with the famous sentence “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Most enterprises fail — the so-called Anna Karenina principle.
From MarketWatch • May 13, 2026
He also starred in thriller Nocturnal Animals, which he won a Golden Globe for in 2017, Anna Karenina, Godzilla and Tenet.
From BBC • Mar. 19, 2024
“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way,” opens Leo Tolstoy’s novel Anna Karenina.
From Scientific American • Nov. 2, 2023
I was in high school when I first read Anna Karenina and encountered the most famous opening line in world literature.
From Slate • Apr. 4, 2020
Just make a few changes, and you have the famous first sentence of Tolstoy’s great novel Anna Karenina: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
