metanarrative
Britishnoun
Etymology
Origin of metanarrative
C20: from meta- + narrative
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The effect of the metanarrative is to juxtapose Byron’s violent passions with the careful, repressed behavior of one who hoped to capture him in literature.
From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 26, 2025
Murphy’s work always tries to tease out a metanarrative about the American condition, whether the topic celebrates fame and glamor or indictment of our failings and excesses.
From Salon • Oct. 4, 2024
Inscryption is a deck-building card-battling roguelike but with a fantastically dark and mysterious metanarrative that elevates it from “interesting” to “utterly engrossing.”
From The Verge • Jun. 23, 2022
No longer a narrative, it would recede into what literary theorists call metanarrative, succeeding those—like religious truth or faith in progress—that have governed the culture of earlier eras.
From Slate • Feb. 19, 2019
A distaste for cliché stopped Mr. Horowitz short of inserting a metanarrative structure to hold the listener’s hand, and the audio format prevented him from structuring his story around physical action.
From New York Times • Nov. 11, 2016
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
