Nora Caplan-Bricker Jordan S. Rubin 
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The original sagas were Icelandic prose narratives that were roughly analogous to modern historical novels. They were penned in the 12th and 13th centuries, and blended fact and fiction to tell the tales of famous rulers, legendary heroes, and average folks of Iceland and Norway. And they were aptly named: saga traces back to an Old Norse root that means "tale." The English word first referred only to those original Icelandic stories, but saga later broadened to cover other narratives reminiscent of those, and the word was eventually further generalized to cover any long, complicated scenario.
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A Brief History of Saga
Saga was originally used to describe Icelandic prose narratives composed in the 12th and 13th centuries. The word first appeared in English in that sense during the 18th century; by the middle of the 19th century we were employing saga in a somewhat looser fashion, in reference to modern stories involving heroic deeds that bore some resemblance to the Icelandic tales of yore. By the 20th century saga had come to be applied to other written works, typically a novel or series of novels, especially those that took place over a significant period of time. Today the word may also be used to describe a long and drawn-out story that is either written or spoken (as in “my neighbor told me the saga of his divorce again”). Saga comes from an Old Norse word of the same spelling. It does not have any connection with the adjective sagacious (“possessing quick intellectual perceptions”), which comes from the Latin sagax (“sagacious”).
Examples of saga in a Sentence
Anthony Crupi, Sportico.com, 18 Mar. 2026
Created and executive produced by Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson, Yellowjackets tells the saga of a team of talented high school girls soccer players who become the (un)lucky survivors of a plane crash deep in the remote northern wilderness.
—Denise Petski, Deadline, 18 Mar. 2026
The replacement of district leaders comes after a 10-month saga involving appeals from the district attempting to stop state intervention, which was triggered by a campus receiving five failed accountability ratings in a row from the state.
—Lina Ruiz, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 17 Mar. 2026
Andrew Sheeran, general counsel for the state’s Agency for Health Care Administration since 2023, was the chief legal architect behind the settlement with Medicaid company Centene at the heart of the Hope Florida saga that’s now under a criminal investigation.
—Alexandra Glorioso, Miami Herald, 17 Mar. 2026
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Cite this Entry
“Saga.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/saga. Accessed 24 Mar. 2026.
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saga
noun
