story

Everyday

1. A story tells about things that happen, true or made up. tree →
2. A story is a news report. tree →
3. A story (UK: storey) is one floor or level of a building. tree →
4. «A story» can also mean a lie told by a child: «Don't tell stories». tree →

In the lessons

Maths: stories read or written (counted); floors of a building (a 10-story building), and «each story is 3 meters tall» gives height. A word problem is a story problem. Reading and writing: the beginning, middle and end of a story; characters, setting, plot. Everyday: bedtime story, short story, true story.

Examples

• Ana read 4 stories before bed. tree →
• Each story has 12 pages. tree →
• The building has 20 stories. tree →
• He wrote 3 stories this week. tree →
• Dad tells us a story every night. tree →
• Every good story has a beginning, a middle and an end. tree →
• Is that a true story or made up? tree →
• Each story of the tower is 3 meters tall. tree →
• And that, madam, is my story. tree →

Note

Countable: a story, stories (y → ies). Usually the thing counted. Trap: in buildings «stories» means floors, and «each story is 3 meters tall» is a rate for height. In UK spelling a floor is a «storey», plural «storeys».

In Jewish tradition

In Noah's ark, "stories" means floors or decks. In the Temple, the side-structure built against the house had stories, meaning levels of rooms stacked one above another, and Ezekiel's vision describes galleries in three stories.

Interpretation. The ark had three decks. Tradition says the lowest held animal waste, the middle the animals and the top Noah's family, though opinions differ. The stories of Solomon's Temple and of Ezekiel's vision are read as showing careful measured design, in which the Temple's plan was given by God.

Examples

• A light shalt thou make to the ark, and to a cubit shalt thou finish it upward; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof; with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it. (Torah GEN.6.16, JPS 1917) tree →
• And he built the stories of the side-structure against all the house, each five cubits high; and they rested on the house with timber of cedar. (Prophets 1KI.6.10, JPS 1917) tree →
• over against the twenty cubits which belonged to the inner court, and over against the pavement which belonged to the outer court; with gallery against gallery in three stories. (Prophets EZK.42.3, JPS 1917) tree →
• For they were in three stories, and they had not pillars as the pillars of the courts; therefore room was taken away from the lowest and the middlemost, in comparison with the ground. (Prophets EZK.42.6, JPS 1917) tree →

Note

Countable: a story, stories (y → ies). Usually the thing counted. Trap: in buildings «stories» means floors, and «each story is 3 meters tall» is a rate for height. In UK spelling a floor is a «storey», plural «storeys».