subs. (colloquial).—1. A falsehood: euphemistic. Whence STORY-TELLER = a liar.
1840. R. H. BARHAM, The Ingoldsby Legends. I wrote the lines … owned them—he told STORIES!
1848. THACKERAY, Vanity Fair, xliv. Becky gave her brother-in-law a bottle of white wine, some that Rawdon had brought with him from France … the little STORY-TELLER said.
1887. Referee, 17 April. As they can’t all be true some of them must be STORIES.
BLIND STORY, subs. phr. (old).—A pointless narrative.
1699. BENTLEY, A Dissertation of the Epistles of Phalaris, Preface, 64. He insinuates a BLIND STORY about something and somebody.
1762–71. WALPOLE, Anecdotes of Painting in England (1786), II. 75. This STORY, which in truth is but a BLIND one.
See UPPER STORY.
