Synopsis
nounA brief summary giving the main points of a book, film, plan, or other piece of work.
How to spell synopsis
8 letters · 3 syllables
How to pronounce synopsis
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does synopsis mean?
- nounA brief summary giving the main points of a book, film, plan, or other piece of work.
Synopsis in a sentence
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The editor asked for a one-page synopsis of the novel before reading the full manuscript.
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Each grant application must include a short synopsis of the proposed research.
Where does synopsis come from?
Language of origin: Greek
This word comes straight from the Greek synopsis, which literally meant 'a seeing all together' or 'a general view'. It was built from syn-, meaning 'together' or 'with', joined to opsis, meaning 'sight' or 'view', the same root that lies behind 'optic' and 'optical'. Late Latin borrowed the term, and English adopted it in the early 1600s to mean a comprehensive summary that lets you take in the whole of something at a glance. The sense has stayed remarkably close to its origin: a synopsis still gathers the main points so they can be 'viewed together' at once. Because the word keeps its Greek shape, the spelling trap is the unstressed vowels, the 'y' rather than 'i' at the start, and the plural form synopses rather than the regular -es.
How the word is built
- syn- (together)
- -opsis (view, seeing), from Greek opsis 'sight'
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