frame story
Americannoun
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a secondary story or stories embedded in the main story.
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a narrative providing the framework for connecting a series of otherwise unrelated stories.
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a literary device that uses such a narrative structure.
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.
As a longtime storyteller, he also savored the primacy of narrative within the stories — particularly the frame story.
From New York Times ● May 12, 2022
There is no such frame story in the stage musical, where the audience to Usnavi’s tale is, well, the audience, and there’s no epilogue involving Vanessa and Usnavi’s daughter.
From Slate ● Jun. 10, 2021
In a frame story, all of this is recounted in Los Angeles by Claude, in 1962, to a film-history doctoral student, Martin Embry, who wants to restore the Frenchman’s singular achievement.
From Washington Post ● Jun. 10, 2019
As the frame story suggests, The Princess Bride was expressly designed for families to share.
From The Verge ● Nov. 21, 2018
Italian writer Giovanni Boccaccio also set his great work, The Decameron, within a frame story in 1335.
From Textbooks ● Jan. 1, 2012
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.
