Storyteller

How to spell storyteller

11 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce storyteller

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does storyteller mean?

1. nounA person who narrates stories, whether for entertainment, tradition, or instruction.

Storyteller in a sentence

• The village hired a professional storyteller for the festival evening.

• As a natural storyteller, she held the boardroom captivated with her account.

Where does storyteller come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a transparent English compound, built from 'story' joined to 'teller'. The first element 'story' arrived in English in the 1200s from Old French 'estorie', which itself came from Latin 'historia', meaning an account or inquiry, the same source that also gave us 'history'. The second element 'teller' is native Germanic, formed from the Old English verb 'tellan', which originally meant to count, reckon, or relate, and the agent suffix '-er' meaning 'one who does'. That older counting sense still survives in the bank 'teller' who counts money. Joined together, the word names a person who relates narratives, and the spelling trap lies in the doubled 'll' of 'teller', where 'tell' keeps both its letters before the suffix.

How the word is built

• story (a narrative account)
• teller (one who tells, from tell
• -er agent suffix)