just-so story
/ˌd͡ʒʌstˈsoʊ ˌstɔɹi/
Word Rarity
Common
Frequency: Zipf frequency 5.37 in modern English
21
Scrabble Score
11
Letters
5
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A story which supposedly explains the beginning or early development of a current state of affairs; a myth, a pourquoi story.
noun
A story, especially one for children, featuring animals as characters.
noun
An untestable explanation for something, such as a form of behaviour, a biological trait, or a cultural practice.
Derogatory
Example Sentences
- "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 adaptive, then genetic—for the inference of adaptation is usually the only basis of a selective story, and Darwinism is a theory of genetic change and variation in populations."
Etymology
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.”
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˌd͡ʒʌstˈsoʊ ˌstɔɹi/
- British English: /ˌd͡ʒʌstˈsəʊ ˌstɔːɹi/