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Added 9 October 2026

storey

/ˈstɔː.ɹɪ/ noun

In Latin: tabulātum Wiktionary

noun Definition from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). Pronunciation from Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org. More about storey at Wordnik → Where our words come from →

A floor or level of a building or ship.
For superstitious reasons, many buildings number their 13th storey as 14, bypassing 13 entirely.
A vertical level in certain letters, such as a and g.
The IPA symbol for a voiced velar stop is the single-storey , not the double-storey
A building; an edifice.

Origin

From Middle English story, via Medieval Latin historia (“narrative, illustraton, frieze”) from Ancient Greek ἱστορίᾱ (historíā, “learning through research”). The current sense arose from narrative friezes on upper levels of medieval buildings, esp. churches. Doublet of story and history. An alternative etymology derives Middle English story from Old French *estoree (“a thing built, building”), from estoree (“built”), feminine past participle of estorer (“to build”), from Latin instaurare (“to construct, build, erect”), but this seems unlikely since historia already had the meaning "storey of a building" in Anglo-Latin.

From Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org (CC BY-SA)

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