variants or less commonly longform
: notably long in form in comparison to what is common or typical for works or content of a particular category
Making Michael Jackson's Thriller … spawned the long-form music video.Paul Taublieb
His compositions are long-form; by a comparative ratio to most piano players, there's not much soloing. Like good long-form structures, they don't always strike you as such; the written parts ease into solos without giving notice.Ben Ratliff
especially, journalism : covering a subject at much greater length and in much greater depth than a standard news article
Long-form and investigative stories were replaced by short, searchable bursts of information. Adam Weinstein
Mine was a world made new by memoir and biography, investigative journalism and longform essay. E. Ce Miller

Examples of long-form in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web
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.
Flores filmed his first-ever long-form special in 2024 in Las Vegas as part of Hartbeat Weekend. Wesley Stenzel, Entertainment Weekly, 6 Sep. 2025 However, expert, long-form content isn’t obsolete. Noa Eshed, Forbes.com, 3 Sep. 2025 Emma has also written for publications including the Observer and The China Project, publishing long-form stories on culture, entertainment, and geopolitics. Emma Burleigh, Fortune, 3 Sep. 2025 From beach books to profundity, long-form fiction opened minds and shrank the world. Doug McIntyre, Oc Register, 31 Aug. 2025 See All Example Sentences for long-form

Word History

First Known Use

1961, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of long-form was in 1961

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Cite this Entry

“Long-form.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/long-form. Accessed 9 Sep. 2025.

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