Word.ws English Dictionary

what's the story

what's the story interjection: requesting an explanation.

Interjection

  1. Requesting an explanation.
    • What's the story with you and Janine? Are you dating or just friends?
  2. (Ireland, idiomatic, Dublin) A greeting; How are you?, What's up?
    • *Any non-Irish person should be aware that it is not necessary to take the question literally i.e. one shouldn't start to explain your life story when greeted with 'What's the story?' rather they should respond in kind e.g. Greeting: 'What's the story?' Response: 'What's the story?' There are...2012, Colin Murphy, Donal O'Dea, “18 - Saying 'What's the story?'”, in More Stuff Irish People Love, 2017 edition, The O'Brien Press Ltd, →ISBN

Forms of what's the story

alternative formstory

Origin of what's the story

From What's the story with you?, possibly through Irish cad é an scéal (lit. "What's the story") (possible backtranslation).

Questions about what's the story

What does what's the story mean?
What's the story means requesting an explanation.
What part of speech is what's the story?
What's the story is an interjection.

Words near what's the story in the dictionary

  1. what's the difference
  2. what's the good of
  3. what's the haps
  4. what's the matter
  5. what's the scam
  6. what's the story
  7. what's the time
  8. what's the time, Mr Wolf
  9. what's the use
  10. what's up
  11. what's up doc

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: what's the 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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