retelling
Americannoun
Etymology
Origin of retelling
Explanation
A retelling is a new version of an old story. Somehow, your retelling of your dad's hilarious tale of catching a shoe instead of a fish is never quite as funny as his version. Retelling comes from the verb retell, or "tell again." You can use this word for literal retellings, when an anecdote is simply told all over again for the second (or third) time. It's also useful for updated versions of classic stories. The movie Clueless is a retelling of the Jane Austen novel Emma. And Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres is a retelling of Shakespeare's King Lear.
Vocabulary lists containing retelling
Literary Terms, Grade 8, Units 2–3
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Conventions, Writing to Sources, and Speaking & Listening (Unit 1)
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Additional Literary Terms, Unit 5
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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.
In a summer dominated by a retelling of history’s most well-known monster-plagued sea voyage, “The Devil’s Mouth” may seem like a mere bagatelle, a non-Imax drop in the brine ‘n’ blood-splattered hero’s journey.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 29, 2026
A cinematic retelling of Homer’s epic is not a particularly original idea.
From Salon ● Jul. 22, 2026
Sarnoski is the perfect person to do a retelling tilted toward the end of a rampager’s life.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 14, 2026
Now Lerone Martin, a Stanford professor and senior editor of the Martin Luther King Jr. Papers Project, offers a rich if overlong retelling of King’s life prior to Montgomery.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 3, 2026
“Khoobam, merci,” Laleh said, and before I knew it, she had launched into her third retelling of her latest game of Heads Down, Thumbs Up.
From "Darius the Great Is Not Okay" by Adib Khorram
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.
