raconteur

plural raconteurs

1. A storyteller, especially a person noted for telling stories with skill and wit.

   2 more examples

   He was tempted to try the last door—to look into the room of evil fame; but he reflected that this would be indiscreet, since Colonel Capadose handled the brush—as a raconteur—with such freedom. There might be a ghost and there might not; but the Colonel himself, he inclined to think, was the most mystifying figure in the house.

   1888, Henry James, The Liar

   It is notoriously possible for the author of a fictitious narrative to become, after a time, unable to distinguish it from a statement of actual facts. There is a case on record in which a learned judge communicated to the Psychical Society in perfect good faith a ghost story, all the principal features of which were proved to be imaginary. They had their origin in his own talent as a distinguished raconteur.

   1905, W. G. Aston, chapter 5, in Shinto: The Way of the Gods, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., page 79

present singular third person raconteurs · participle present raconteuring · participle past raconteured · past raconteured

1. To make witty remarks or stories.

   The two of them turn to each other and raise an eyebrow each, their signal to slip into alternating raconteuring.

   2003, Michel Faber, The Crimson Petal and the White, →ISBN, page 155