narrative

1
2
as in tale
a work with imaginary characters and events that is shorter and usually less complex than a novel in such narratives as "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" and "The Purloined Letter," Edgar Allan Poe essentially created the modern detective story

Synonyms & Similar Words

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of narrative In the United Kingdom, social media exacerbated this narrative, depriving Teasdale and Chambers of the necessary space to privately reckon with their sudden fame. Sophie Williams, Billboard, 10 Oct. 2025 The bookstore continues to have a section called African American History, featuring such books as Henry Louis Gates’s collection of nineteenth-century slave narratives. Literary Hub, 10 Oct. 2025 The publishers really wanted a personal-memoir narrative to it. Jason P. Frank, Vulture, 10 Oct. 2025 Both women acknowledged that invisibility has long been the default narrative for women after midlife—and both are actively rewriting it. Emily Cegielski, Flow Space, 10 Oct. 2025 See All Example Sentences for narrative
Recent Examples of Synonyms for narrative
Noun
  • This story will be updated as more information becomes available.
    David Goodhue, Miami Herald, 7 Oct. 2025
  • The series’ first season, chronicling the crimes of Milwaukee serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, prompted a conversation about the exploitation of Black and disabled people’s stories for entertainment, while the season following the Menendez Brothers led to a real-world reconsidering of their guilt.
    Mathew Rodriguez, Them., 7 Oct. 2025
Noun
  • Instead, spectators at the Melbourne Cricket Ground will forever tell tales of his audacious 60 off just 65 balls.
    Sam Dalling, New York Times, 7 Oct. 2025
  • Wyler’s Oscar-winning film The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) – a timely tale of the weight of coming home from World War II – was named as subversive by HUAC.
    Chris Yogerst, HollywoodReporter, 6 Oct. 2025
Noun
  • Since its release, viewers have been arguing about the chronology of One Battle After Another.
    Fran Hoepfner, Vulture, 8 Oct. 2025
  • The two of them are tightly bound not just by chronology but also by the stratifications of class; Marlowe’s father made shoes, and Shakespeare’s father made gloves.
    Anthony Lane, New Yorker, 8 Sep. 2025
Noun
  • In some ways, that question is secondary to the fact that Lot 49 grapples with the nature of symbology itself, and the way that symbols work in literature, which contributed to the novella as good syllabus fodder.
    Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 7 Oct. 2025
  • Featuring illustrations by Sophie Blackall, the novella wraps up the trilogy that DiCamillo largely wrote during the COVID-19 pandemic.
    Carly Tagen-Dye, PEOPLE, 30 Sep. 2025
Noun
  • Lightcap—who joined OpenAI from Y Combinator in 2018—double-majored in economics and history in college.
    Allie Garfinkle, Fortune, 10 Oct. 2025
  • Honestly, every year feels like 10 years in the history of the Palestinian people.
    Yamiche Alcindor, NBC news, 10 Oct. 2025
Noun
  • This will only work on accounts using an email included in the initial 2021 data breach.
    James Peckham, PC Magazine, 6 Oct. 2025
  • Digital rights advocates have also pushed back against a proposal to limit a person to only one social media account per platform, ostensibly as a means to crack down on disinformation.
    Chad de Guzman, Time, 6 Oct. 2025
Noun
  • Taylor said in a prerecorded interview that served as the majority of the narration.
    Adisa Hargett-Robinson, The Washington Examiner, 6 Oct. 2025
  • The action is largely desynchronized, the activities onscreen contrasting with the voice-over narrations, with the effect of destabilizing the present tense of the movie, imbuing it with nostalgia and with longing for possible futures.
    Richard Brody, New Yorker, 2 Oct. 2025
Noun
  • Ever the nosy detective, Ashley takes it upon herself to search Virginia’s court records to find a record of Stacey’s divorce, and comes up empty, a claim that Stacey doesn’t refute.
    Shamira Ibrahim, Vulture, 6 Oct. 2025
  • Online court records indicated to investigators that Arfsten was released on bail in a felony theft case at the time of the South Milwaukee incident.
    Erik S. Hanley, jsonline.com, 6 Oct. 2025

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Cite this Entry

“Narrative.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/narrative. Accessed 12 Oct. 2025.

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