Nora Caplan-Bricker Jordan S. Rubin 
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The original sagas were Icelandic prose narratives that were roughly analogous to modern historical novels. They were penned in the 12th and 13th centuries, and blended fact and fiction to tell the tales of famous rulers, legendary heroes, and average folks of Iceland and Norway. And they were aptly named: saga traces back to an Old Norse root that means "tale." The English word first referred only to those original Icelandic stories, but saga later broadened to cover other narratives reminiscent of those, and the word was eventually further generalized to cover any long, complicated scenario.
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A Brief History of Saga
Saga was originally used to describe Icelandic prose narratives composed in the 12th and 13th centuries. The word first appeared in English in that sense during the 18th century; by the middle of the 19th century we were employing saga in a somewhat looser fashion, in reference to modern stories involving heroic deeds that bore some resemblance to the Icelandic tales of yore. By the 20th century saga had come to be applied to other written works, typically a novel or series of novels, especially those that took place over a significant period of time. Today the word may also be used to describe a long and drawn-out story that is either written or spoken (as in “my neighbor told me the saga of his divorce again”). Saga comes from an Old Norse word of the same spelling. It does not have any connection with the adjective sagacious (“possessing quick intellectual perceptions”), which comes from the Latin sagax (“sagacious”).
Examples of saga in a Sentence
Sam Allard, Axios, 20 Nov. 2024
Watch on Deadline Created by Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson, Yellowjackets is the saga of a team of talented high school girls soccer players who become the (un)lucky survivors of a plane crash deep in the remote northern wilderness.
—Nellie Andreeva, Deadline, 19 Nov. 2024
There’s one episode left in the Sekai Taikai saga, and Kreese seems convinced that this isn’t over.
—Ben Rosenstock, Vulture, 16 Nov. 2024
The Cliffhanger revival saga is a rare example of a single project switching from being a legacy sequel with the original star (along the lines of Creed or Top Gun: Maverick) to a standalone follow-up/reboot (like Twisters or the 2017 Mummy) with no returning characters or actors.
—Wesley Stenzel, EW.com, 31 Oct. 2024
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Dictionary Entries Near saga
Cite this Entry
“Saga.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/saga. Accessed 28 Nov. 2024.
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saga
noun
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