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unreliable narrator

American

[uhn-ri-lahy-uh-buhl nar-ay-ter] / ˌʌn rɪˈlaɪ ə bəl ˈnær eɪ tər /

noun

a narrator, especially in a work of fiction, whose version of events cannot be completely trusted.

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

unreliable narrators

plural

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.

See Examples For:

unreliable narrator

His second day of testimony in federal court in Oakland, California grew testy at times, as OpenAI's lawyers sought to portray the Tesla tycoon as an unreliable narrator of the company's history.

From Barron's ● Apr. 29, 2026

The psychologist was asked by the panel if Norris was an unreliable narrator because of poor memory or due to "deliberate rewriting of history".

From BBC ● Oct. 8, 2025

Concluding that Didion left these pages behind so they would eventually take shape as the penance of an unreliable narrator is surely too tidy.

From Salon ● Jun. 14, 2025

Season two begins with Daniel viewing Louis as an unreliable narrator because his details from the two interviews don’t match.

From Seattle Times ● May 5, 2024

Are you familiar with the phrase unreliable narrator?

From "Confessions of a Murder Suspect" by James Patterson

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023