Saga Meaning
/ˈsɑːɡə/Definition, CEFR level B2, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounAn Old Norse (Icelandic) prose narrative, especially one dealing with family or social histories and legends.
nounSomething with the qualities of such a saga; an epic, a long story.
Sentence Examples
It was the third year of Meiji when their family name was changed to Saga.
The Terminator saga also has a television series.
CEFR Practice Quiz
The author wrote a long family ____ that covers over a hundred years.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The novelist spent ten years writing an epic ____ about three generations of a farming family.
Word Origin & History
From Old Norse saga (“epic tale, story”), from Proto-Germanic *sagǭ (“saying, story”), from Proto-Indo-European *sekʷ- (“to say”). Cognate with Old English sagu (“story, tale, statement”), Old High German saga (“an assertion, narrative, sermon, pronouncement”), Icelandic saga (“story, tale, history”), German Sage (“saga, legend, myth”). More at say; Doublet of saw. Compare typologically Ancient Greek ἔπος (épos) (whence epos, epic) << Proto-Indo-European *wekʷ- (“to speak”).
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"The latest Fire Emblem, developed by the makers of Advance Wars and available in the U.S., is the seventh game in an epic saga that began 13 years ago on the NES."
— 2003 December 26, “Fire Emblem”, in Nintendo Power, volume 174, A Long and Fiery Tradition, page 32:
"Manchester City put the Carlos Tevez saga behind them with a classy victory at Blackburn that keeps them level on points with leaders Manchester United."
— 2011 October 1, David Ornstein, “Blackburn 0-4 Man City”, in BBC Sport, archived from the original on 09 Dec 2012:
"According to this saga of intellectual-property misanthropy, these creatures [patent trolls] roam the business world, buying up patents and then using them to demand extravagant payouts from companies they accuse of infringing them. Often, their victims pay up rather than face the costs of a legal battle."
— 2013 June 8, “Obama goes troll-hunting”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8839, archived from the original on 19 Sep 2020, page 55:
"[…] Saga Norén's personal story that forms the series' sentimental narrative. As part of her strategy to develop ways to understand the personal motivations of the killers and other people around her, Saga Norén actively uses her partners[…]"
— 2019 January 28, Dimitris Akrivos, Alexandros K. Antoniou, Crime, Deviance and Popular Culture: International and Multidisciplinary Perspectives, Springer, →ISBN, page 34:
"We saw many other striking manifestations of hydrothermal activity in the Himalayan geothermal belt. The boiling spouters of Namling County, for example, emit endless jets of water and steam; the Rugyog fumarole of Saga County sends up vapors and gases as scorching as the breath of a furnace;[…]"
— 1982, Zhang Mingtao, The Roof of the World, Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 73:
Explore More B2 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
The author wrote a long family ____ that covers over a hundred years.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The novelist spent ten years writing an epic ____ about three generations of a farming family.