long-form

adjective

ˈlȯŋ-ˌfȯrm 

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

Tribeca Festival also announced the lineup for its NOW program of independent short-form and long-form pilots and series. —Hilary Lewis, The Hollywood Reporter, 18 Apr. 2024

This will be the fifth installment in the eight-part true crime series built on long-form investigative journalism. —Detroit Free Press, 14 Apr. 2024

The long-form magazine writer needs to have those narrative skills. —John J. Lennon, The New Yorker, 14 Apr. 2024

This will be the fourth installment in the eight-part true crime series built on long-form investigative journalism. —Detroit Free Press, 7 Apr. 2024

Now, more than a quarter of the more than 3 million creators in its YouTube Partner Program are earning money on Shorts, often in addition to traditional long-form videos, the company announced in a blog post Thursday. —Clare Duffy, CNN, 28 Mar. 2024

While long-form audio used to be the province of dour-sounding NPR and BBC radio documentaries, the proliferation of titles and program formats has massively expanded the boundaries of audio-only storytelling. —Cynthia Littleton, Variety, 27 Mar. 2024

The Academy also made minor tweaks to its definition of what qualifies for the singer-songwriter field (60 percent of tracks must be in Spanish, Portuguese, or other native dialect) and to the long-form video category, reducing the length of a film from 20 minutes to 12. —Kory Grow, Rolling Stone, 27 Mar. 2024

Column One Column One is The Times’ home for narrative and long-form journalism. —Andrew J. Campa, Los Angeles Times, 17 Mar. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1961, in the meaning defined above