ADJ
- true
- plausible
- false, made-up
- She told the police a false story about being attacked
- apocryphal
- cock-and-bull, tall
- No one would believe such a tall story
- official
- The official story was that the singer had broken his arm falling in the shower
- wild
- convincing
- charming, compelling, delightful, dramatic, exciting, fantastic, fascinating, good, great, interesting, intriguing, nice, wonderful
- amazing, bizarre, colourful, crazy, extraordinary, incredible, outrageous, remarkable, strange
- inspiring
- amusing, entertaining, funny
- epic
- the epic story of a family's escape from war
- complex, elaborate
- straightforward
- awful, horrific, horrifying, nasty, shocking, terrible, tragic
- sorry
- His life was a sorry story of betrayal and rejection
- depressing, heart-rending, moving, poignant, sad
- improbable
- The film tells the improbable story of a monkey that becomes a politician
- well known
- familiar
- the familiar story of a star who turns to drink and drugs
- popular
- There is one popular story in the village of a man-eating cat that lives in the forest
- life, success
- She told them her life story
- hard-luck, rags-to-riches
- He was boring people with more of his hard-luck stories. The film is the rags-to-riches story of a country girl who becomes a famous singer
- after-dinner
- coherent
- The film lacks a coherent story
- full, whole
- I suspected he hadn't told us the whole story
- short
- a collection of short stories
- children's
- classic
- bedtime
- mythical, mythological
- adventure, Bible, biblical, crime, detective, fairy, ghost, horror, love, private-eye, spy, suspense
QUANT
- fragment
- We had difficulty in piecing together the fragments of her story
- collection
- a collection of stories by modern writers
VERB + STORY
- read (sb)
- My dad sometimes read me a story at bedtime
- write
- narrate, recount, relate, tell (sb)
- embellish, embroider
- believe
- The police didn't believe her story
- stick to
- We must stick to our story about the accident
- change
- At first he denied everything, but then he changed his story and said it was an accident
- swap
- We swapped stories about our worst teachers
- circulate, spread
STORY + VERB
- abound, circulate, get about, go around/round, spread
- Stories abound of vandalism and looting. A story was going round that the factory was in line for closure
- emerge
- begin, open, start
- The story opens with a man hiding from the police under a woman's skirt
- progress, unfold
- The motives of the hero become clearer as the story unfolds
- end
- be called sth, be entitled sth
- be set in …
- The story is set in Poland in the 1930s
- be based on sth
- concern sth, involve sth, revolve around sth
- contain sth
- illustrate sth
- This story illustrates the dangers of living on credit
STORY + NOUN
- teller (also storyteller)
- telling (also storytelling)
- line (also storyline)
- His novels always have the same basic storyline
PREP
- ~ about
- a story about time travel
- ~ of
- the story of the Beatles
PHRASES
- but that's another story
- Many years later I returned to Africa but that's another story (= I am not going to talk about it now)
- it's a long story
- ' How come you've only got one shoe on? ' ' It's a long story. '
- sb's half/side of the story
- The teacher punished me without listening to my side of the story
- so the story goes, the story goes that … (= used to describe what people are saying although it may not be correct)
- She never saw him again?or so the story goes
- the story of my life
- Out of work with no money?that's the story of my life
- to cut a long story short
- Anyway, to cut a long story short (= not to give all the details) , we had this argument and I haven't seen him since
- a version of a story
- According to Rachel's version of the story, they threw the key in the river
ADJ
- big, top
- The biggest story of the day was the signing of the peace agreement. And now back to our top story tonight …
- exclusive
- main
- full
- Full story on page 3
- scare
- scare stories about the harmful effects of the vaccination
- inside
- The magazine gives the inside story of life in a rock band
- sensational
- lurid, sordid, spicy
- lurid stories of politicians' sexual adventures
- cover, front-page, lead
- The magazine chose the peace process as its cover story
- news
VERB + STORY
- file, write
- More than one correspondent filed a story about the incident
- carry, print, publish, run
- Every newspaper carried the story
PREP
- ~ about, ~ of
- the story of his arrest