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.
Had “Traversal” been nothing but Ms. Popova’s retelling of these histories, it might have been a far more successful evocation of these patterns of destruction and creation.
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 6, 2026
I don’t know whether or not he is a narcissist, but from your retelling, he is someone who has always looked out for himself.
From MarketWatch • Feb. 25, 2026
Decades of retelling this story means "kindliest" has now turned into "friendliest".
From BBC • Feb. 13, 2026
“As ads move into chatbots, the real competition won’t be for attention — it’ll be for how clearly your message survives retelling by AI,” Inman said.
From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 11, 2026
They’d tell what they’d seen, embroider the rest, and with every retelling, Dirtyhands would get crazier and more ruthless.
From "Six of Crows" by Leigh Bardugo
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.
