like a storybook
1
5.6
- idiom
- Informal
:
como de cuento de hadas
- The small town was charming and peaceful, almost like a storybook.
- looks like a storybook
Examples
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After years of travel, he finally found a home that seemed like a storybook cottage nestled in the woods.
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This is like a storybook ending for us.
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Officer Hermes sounds like a storybook character.
Fiction book (1998) -
Late in the game it starts snowing and it's just like a storybook ending to the season.
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In a birthday note to a favorite niece, Katherine wrote, "This is a lovely island, quite like a storybook."
Academic text (2003) -
Her wedding day felt like a storybook with its beautiful decorations and joyful atmosphere.
Synonyms
1
6.0
Telling imagined events in a long, detailed way like a story
Antonyms
How Ideal
Surface Forms
Morphology
like + a + storybook
This is a straightforward simile: 'like' + 'storybook' (a book of stories) yields the meaning 'resembling something from a storybook / fairy tale.' The imagery is literal and cross-linguistically common (e.g. 'like a fairy tale'), so a B1 learner who knows the constituents can readily infer the idealized/perfect sense.
Etymology
The phrase like a storybook compares a real scene to the bright, neat pictures you see in a children's storybook, where cottages, gardens and snowfall look perfect and magical. So, saying something is like a storybook means it looks 'perfect' or 'magical'.