Word.ws English Dictionary

plotline

plotline noun: the basic plot of a story or group of stories.

Noun

plotline (plural plotlines)

  1. The basic plot of a story or group of stories.
  2. A group of stories sharing a plot.
    • Advocacy groups have long known the power of TV plot lines. Back in the 1980s, the Harvard School of Public Health mounted a campaign to normalize the idea of a “designated driver” to reduce drunk driving.2014 March 27, Robin Marantz Henig, “Fictional Plotlines and Real Assisted Suicide”, in The Atlantic, archived from the original on 01 Jun 2014
    • Even at time of writing, it is not remotely clear what has or hasn’t been happening – whether a smaller private wedding had taken place in advance and this was all a post-hoc celebration, whether the size of the venue meant some superfans would be admitted for a glimpse, whether – and this is a big...2026 July 3, Marina Hyde, “The US turns 250 and Taylor Swift gets married. I think we all know which is a bigger deal”, in The Guardian, →ISSN, archived from the original on 03 Jul 2026

Forms of plotline

pluralplotlines
alternative formplot line

Origin of plotline

From plot + line.

Questions about plotline

What does plotline mean?
Plotline means the basic plot of a story or group of stories.
What part of speech is plotline?
Plotline is a noun.
What is the plural of plotline?
The plural of plotline is plotlines.

Words near plotline in the dictionary

  1. plotless
  2. plotlessly
  3. plotlessness
  4. plotlet
  5. plotlets
  6. plotline
  7. plotlines
  8. Plotner
  9. Plotners
  10. Plotnick
  11. Plotnicks

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: plotline (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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Cite this entry: “plotline.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/plotline. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.