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the full story

the full story

25 3.0
A complete, detailed report of events and facts
  • noun
translation icon : toda la historia
  • Rice spoke five days after the attack; the full story of what happened hadn't been sorted out yet.
  • tell the full story

He hasn't told the full story on this podcast.

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Examples

  • And now for the first time, we are bringing to you the full story of what happened on that fateful day.

  • And now, for the first time, we are bringing you the full story of what happened.

  • After hearing the full story, we immediately thought, we have got to do a piece on it.

  • And now I'm coming on here today to tell the full story, to tell my story.

  • But I just think people in town ought to know the full story on Buddy Deeds.

  • We now have the full story on the Fern School drowning.

  • This is the full story of how we rode all the way across the United States of America on this three seater bike.

  • After hearing the full story, we immediately thought we have to do a piece on it.

  • The news services didn't get the full story, but I did.

  • We now have the full story on the Fern School drowning.

Synonyms

narrative
vsthe full story
336 3.9

A story that describes connected events

is the complete, detailed account including all events and facts

Antonyms

the half of it
  • Informal
13 6.5

Only part of the story is known, with much more hidden

How Complete

the full story
25 3.0
account
466 3.0
summary
397 2.7
outline
59 2.7

Surface Forms

Morphology

the + full + story

The meaning 'the complete and detailed account' is directly and transparently derived from combining 'full' (complete) with 'story' (narrative); the determiner 'the' simply specifies a particular instance. This adjective+noun compositional pattern is common cross-linguistically and B1 learners who know the constituents should be able to infer the MWE's meaning.

Etymology

The full story comes from the image of a full story, like a book that shows every page from start to end. So when someone gives the full story, they mean the 'whole account' with all the facts and events.