Meanings
plural origin stories
- human sciencesAn account or backstory that explains the genesis or beginning of a fictional character or entity.
George Miller returns to direct an origin story for the character that Charlize Theron played in 2015’s “Mad Max: Fury Road,” with Anya Taylor-Joy in the Furiosa role.
2024 January 1, Holland Cotter, Alissa Wilkinson, Mike Hale, Salamishah Tillet, Jesse Green, “What Our Critics Are Looking Forward to in 2024”, in The New York Times, →ISSN2 more examples
More unsettling was the origin story of the infamous tell-all book Princess in Love. Diana claimed to be outraged in 1994 when Daily Express journalist Anna Pasternak spilled the beans of her affair with former army officer James Hewitt[…]
2022 April 5, Tina Brown, “How Princess Diana’s Dance With the Media Impacted William and Harry”, in Vanity FairPremiering July 10, The Anarchists[…]circles loosely around these dilemmas throughout six episodes that alternate between origin story, character study, true crime, and trend report.
2022 July 8, Judy Berman, “The Anarchists Is a Messy, Gripping Anarcho-Capitalist Saga”, in Time, archived from the original on 28 Jul 2022
Translations
Finnish alkuperätarina
- alkuperätarinaaccount of how a fictional character or characters became a protagonist or antagonist
Hungarian eredettörténet
- eredettörténetaccount of how a fictional character or characters became a protagonist or antagonist
Polish geneza
- genezaaccount of how a fictional character or characters became a protagonist or antagonist
Cite this entry
origin story. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/origin%20story
“origin story.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/origin%20story. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “origin story,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/origin%20story.
Source: origin story on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.