Tolstoy

American  

[tohl-stoi, tol-, tuhl-stoi] / ˈtoʊl stɔɪ, ˈtɒl-, tʌlˈstɔɪ /

Or Tolstoi

noun

1. Leo or Lev Nikolaevich Count, 1828–1910, Russian novelist and social critic.

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Tolstoy British  

/ ˈtɒlstɔɪ, talˈstɔj /

noun

1. Leo , Russian name Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy. 1828–1910, Russian novelist, short-story writer, and philosopher; author of the two monumental novels War and Peace (1865–69) and Anna Karenina (1875–77). Following a spiritual crisis in 1879, he adopted a form of Christianity based on a doctrine of nonresistance to evil

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Other Word Forms

• Tolstoian
  adjective
• Tolstoyan
  adjective
• Tolstoyism
  noun
• Tolstoyist
  noun

Compare meaning

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

• Tolstoy vs. Dostoevsky

Example Sentences

There’s documented marginalia and scribblings that suggest a serious reader, and anecdotes about her reciting poems at parties, reading Proust on set, and expounding on Whitman, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy.

From Los Angeles Times • May 25, 2026

Leo Tolstoy wrote that there is no happiness in life — only its glimmers.

From MarketWatch • May 22, 2026

“Now it’s a lot about plot and action or character — not so much setting and scene location, which is what you get with Tolstoy or John Dos Passos.”

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 28, 2026

Two years later he made a rare foray into fiction with "A Couple," inspired by the relationship and correspondence between Leo Tolstoy and his wife, Sophia.

From Barron's • Feb. 16, 2026

But his grandfather had recently gone blind, and he had requested Ashoke’s company specifically, to read him The Statesman in the morning, Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy in the afternoon.

From "The Namesake" by Jhumpa Lahiri