retell
Americanverb (used with object)
verb
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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retellsimple
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retellssimple
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have retoldperfect
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has retoldperfect
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am retellingprogressive
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are retellingprogressive
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is retellingprogressive
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have been retellingperfect progressive
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has been retellingperfect progressive
Past
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retoldsimple
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had retoldperfect
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was retellingprogressive
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were retellingprogressive
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had been retellingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of retell
Explanation
If you recite your story a second time, you retell it. After they hear about how you actually slipped on a banana peel, your laughing friends may beg you to retell the incident over and over again. To retell is to reiterate something, or to tell it again. You might retell your favorite joke every time you have a new audience, or you may find yourself having to retell the details of a fender bender you witnessed once the police show up. When a writer takes up an old theme or story to put their own new twist on it, they retell it: "My goal was to retell the classic Cinderella tale in a modern way."
Vocabulary lists containing retell
Vocabulary of the Common Core
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Conventions, Writing to Sources, and Speaking & Listening, Unit 1
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Part 3 Vocabulary (Unit 4)
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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.
See Examples For:
Anthony Puzo, Mario Puzo's son, told Publishers Weekly: "We had been looking for someone to retell the story from a new perspective."
From Barron's ● May 14, 2026
With such vividly realized characters, the Coens portray a truth far larger than the crimes they purport to retell.
From Salon ● Feb. 7, 2026
Now “Five Bullets,” by Elliot Williams, and “Fear and Fury,” by Heather Ann Thompson, retell the story.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 6, 2026
The new footage from the deep provides another chance to retell Scott's story, says David Waterhouse.
From BBC ● Sep. 2, 2025
The part we would remember, would tell and retell so many times it became family folklore, was that Luke was unable to get out of his gasoline-soaked jeans.
From "Educated" by Tara Westover
Roberto José Andrade Franco retells the saga of Oscar De La Hoya versus Julio Cesar Chávez, landing less on the side of the former than pointing out the assimilationist façade of the Golden Boy.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 21, 2025
Osbourne retells the infamous story of orally beheading an unsuspecting bat.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 15, 2025
It retells the story using interviews and a great deal of footage from the actual show, which underlines how innovative it was.
From New York Times ● May 3, 2024
“That was a sort of a weird moment for me as a kid,” Cooper retells, “because to me, it did matter. And it's mattered ever since in a sense.”
From Salon ● Apr. 21, 2024
In other words, the song relives and retells the experiences of a child in another century and makes her story highly relatable to us today.
From "Music and the Child" by Natalie Sarrazin
Instead, it will be retold as something far more epic than that.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 19, 2026
But it’s a history that must be retold to be understood and appreciated.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 7, 2026
It’s a story that’s been retold in recent weeks amid the Andes virus outbreak on a cruise ship to show how outbreaks sometimes lead to scientific breakthroughs.
From MarketWatch ● May 17, 2026
She’s made something different from your typical adaptation, a movie that brings a fresh perspective to a very old and frequently retold tale.
From Salon ● Feb. 23, 2026
But the story that occupied my mind for the longest time, the story that I retold over and over, was about a baby elephant named Boo.
From "Tasting the Sky" by Ibtisam Barakat
In his retelling of Homer’s epic poem, Nolan imagines Odysseus as a man haunted by the sacking of Troy.
From Salon ● Jul. 21, 2026
Throughout his lively retelling of the story, he added a series of sound effects to move the story line — among them, wacha, pum, pum, pum, gol.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 7, 2026
His movie is a remarkable piece of autofiction, retelling his first experience with air travel as if it were a love story.
From Salon ● Jun. 10, 2026
Luail is an all-Ireland professional dance company and Trojans is an up-to-date retelling of The Aeneid, complete with electronic music and striking visuals.
From BBC ● Apr. 29, 2026
What if it goes on forever, the telling and retelling?
From "Everything Sad Is Untrue" by Daniel Nayeri
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.
