retell
Americanverb (used with object)
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retells,
present (3rd person singular)
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retold,
past participle, past
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retelling
present participle
verb
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
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
-
have been retellingperfect progressive
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has been retellingperfect progressive
Past
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retoldsimple
-
had retoldperfect
-
was retellingprogressive
-
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
But much like Baz Luhrmann’s “Romeo + Juliet,” she’s not trying to retell this famous tale; she’s reimagining it as the outsized, grand spectacle it has become in both public consciousness and personal affection.
From Salon ● Feb. 14, 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
When Kayleigh Griffiths lost her baby daughter, Pippa, in 2016 through maternity failings in Shropshire, she had no idea how many times she would have to retell her traumatic story at future medical appointments.
From BBC ● Nov. 28, 2025
I could retell it, but nothing like Le Guin.
From "The Last Cuentista" by Donna Barba Higuera
Osbourne retells the infamous story of orally beheading an unsuspecting bat.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 15, 2025
The Hulu limited series starring Grace Van Patten retells the events surrounding Amanda Knox, a woman convicted of murdering her roommate, only for the conviction to be overturned.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 20, 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
The Voyage Home is the third book in Pat Barker's series which retells The Iliad story from the perspective of the Trojan women.
From BBC ● Dec. 28, 2023
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
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
When I was a kid, hearing my birth story told and retold, I never heard about Al’s prison time or his absences at the hospital.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 30, 2026
Chuckling as she retold the story, Fiona said: "Now do I look like the type?"
From BBC ● Jan. 10, 2026
His grandmother retold rose-tinted stories of building aircraft equipment during World War II before being forcibly relegated back to her domestic life.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 25, 2025
It was told and retold; things were forgotten, or shaped and changed.
From "Son" by Lois Lowry
A cinematic retelling of Homer’s epic is not a particularly original idea.
From Salon ● Jul. 22, 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
Hugh Jackman plays Robin Hood in his final days, a loose retelling of a 500-year-old ballad, and seems to have ancient dirt creased into his wrinkles.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 18, 2026
In the retelling of the ancient historian’s chronicle of the fifth century B.C.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 18, 2026
Hedge began retelling the story, but in his version Piper was a kung fu assassin and there were a lot more Boreads.
From "The House of Hades" by Rick Riordan
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.
