: a characteristically anonymous, timeless, and placeless tale circulated orally among a people
Examples of folktale in a Sentence
West African folktales that continue to be passed from generation to generation through storytelling.
Recent Examples on the Web
Meanwhile, Freudians and evolutionary psychologists trawled folktales for evidence to shore up their theories.
—
Manvir Singh, New Yorker, 13 Oct. 2025
There’s Miles, a scholar of Russian folktales who can’t focus on his dissertation; his wife Kate, an English professor grappling with an illness; their two children, Olive and Wesley; and their dog Giuseppe.
—Carly Tagen-Dye, PEOPLE, 10 Oct. 2025
America’s first folktale, in other words, is a folktale about the making of America.
—John Swansburg, The Atlantic, 10 Oct. 2025
Hovering blue flames that flicker over bogs and marshes have inspired ghostly folktales for centuries.
—Mindy Weisberger, CNN Money, 8 Oct. 2025
See All Example Sentences for folktale
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Manvir Singh, New Yorker, 13 Oct. 2025
There’s Miles, a scholar of Russian folktales who can’t focus on his dissertation; his wife Kate, an English professor grappling with an illness; their two children, Olive and Wesley; and their dog Giuseppe.
—Carly Tagen-Dye, PEOPLE, 10 Oct. 2025
America’s first folktale, in other words, is a folktale about the making of America.
—John Swansburg, The Atlantic, 10 Oct. 2025
Hovering blue flames that flicker over bogs and marshes have inspired ghostly folktales for centuries.
—Mindy Weisberger, CNN Money, 8 Oct. 2025
See All Example Sentences for folktale
Cite this Entry
“Folktale.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/folktale. Accessed 15 Oct. 2025.
Copy CitationKids Definition
folktale
noun
folk·tale
-ˌtāl 
: a story made up and handed down by the common people
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