short story

American  

noun

1. a piece of prose fiction, usually under 10,000 words.

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short story British  

noun

1. a prose narrative of shorter length than the novel, esp one that concentrates on a single theme

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Other Word Forms

• short-story adjective

Etymology

Origin of short story

First recorded in 1885–90

Compare meaning

How does short-story compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:

• short story vs. novella

Example Sentences

He began writing only after having had a varied cosmopolitan life, and in 2009, already in his 40s, published “In Other Rooms, Other Wonders,” a collection of loosely connected short stories.

From The Wall Street Journal

Winnie-the-Pooh first featured in the short story The Wrong Sort of Bees published in the newspaper London Evening News on 24 December 1925.

From BBC

The author is a writer whose short stories have been nominated for the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers and Best of the Net.

From Los Angeles Times

He also wrote nine volumes of short stories in 25 years, more than 20 novels and nearly 30 football books.

From BBC

The Post likened him to Ichabod Crane, the fictional schoolmaster in the Washington Irving short story “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.”

From The Wall Street Journal

Related Words

• narrative
• novella
• tale