just-so story
/ˌd͡ʒʌstˈsəʊ ˌstɔːɹi/US/ˌd͡ʒʌstˈsoʊ ˌstɔɹi/
just-so story noun: a story which supposedly explains the beginning or early development of a current state of affairs; a myth, a pourquoi story.
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Noun
just-so story (plural just-so stories)
- A story which supposedly explains the beginning or early development of a current state of affairs; a myth, a pourquoi story.
- A story, especially one for children, featuring animals as characters.
- An untestable explanation for something, such as a form of behaviour, a biological trait, or a cultural practice.
- Sociobiological explanations of human behaviour encounter two special difficulties, suggesting that a Darwinian model may be generally inapplicable in this case. […] Secondly, the standard foundation of Darwinian just-so stories does not apply to humans. That foundation is the implication: if...1978 November 16, Stephen Jay Gould, “Sociobiology: The Art of Storytelling”, in Bernard Dixon, editor, New Scientist, volume 80, number 1129, London: IPC Magazines, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 532
just-so story meaning in Persian
just-so story in Persian
- untestable explanation for something
- داستان فقط به همین دلیل
Forms of just-so story
| plural | just-so stories |
|---|
Origin of just-so story
PIE word *swé From just so (“(almost) exactly or precisely like something”, adjective) + story, referring to the series of short stories called Just So Stories (collected in book form in 1902) by the English writer Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) which described how various animals acquired their distinctive characteristics, such as how the leopard got its spots. According to Kipling, the stories were so titled because they were intended to put his daughter Josephine (“Effie”) to sleep, “and you were not allowed to alter those by one single little word. They had to be told just so; or Effie would wake up and put back the missing sentence.”
Questions about just-so story
- What does just-so story mean?
- Just-so story means a story which supposedly explains the beginning or early development of a current state of affairs; a myth, a pourquoi story.
- What is just-so story in Persian?
- Just-so story in Persian is داستان فقط به همین دلیل. See Just-so story meaning in Persian.
- What part of speech is just-so story?
- Just-so story is a noun.
- How do you pronounce just-so story?
- Just-so story is pronounced /ˌd͡ʒʌstˈsəʊ ˌstɔːɹi/ (UK).
- What is the plural of just-so story?
- The plural of just-so story is just-so stories.
Words near just-so story in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: just-so story (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-just-so story.wav.
Cite this entry: “just-so story.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/just-so_story. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.