storybookn.adj.
/ˈstɔːrɪbʊk/, U.S. /ˈstɔriˌbʊk/ A. n.
A book containing a story or stories, (now) esp. one intended for children. In early use also: †a history book, a chronicle (obsolete).
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society > communication > book > kind of book > [noun] > storybook
storybook1570
1570 J. Foxe Actes & Monumentes (rev. ed.) I. 237/1 An old story booke intituled: Eulogium.
1660 S. Fisher Rusticus ad Academicos To Rdr. sig. f4 Blomes Book of Sundry Slanders and Calumnies..(Stoln out of T. D's. Story Books).
1698 F. Grant Sadducismus Debellatus 6 Thou turn'st thy Back to me, when I am telling thee truth; if I were reading a Story-Book..thou would'st hear that.
1711 J. Swift Tatler No. 5 My Maid left on the Table..one of her Story-Books (as she calls them) which I..found full of strange Impertinences,..Of poor Servants that came to be Ladies [etc.].
1790 W. Cowper Let. 23 Mar. (1982) III. 364 The Odyssey, which is one of the most amusing story-books in the world.
1818 W. Scott Heart of Mid-Lothian ii, in Tales of my Landlord 2nd Ser. IV. 30 The Duke in person, with laced coat, gold-headed cane, star and garter, all, as the story-book says, very grand.
1848 W. M. Thackeray Vanity Fair xlv. 407 Her simple little fancies shrank away tremulously, as fairies in the story-books, before a superior bad angel.
1883 M. B. Betham-Edwards Disarmed I. xi. 128 Can things come right for us, as they do in story-books?
1908 A. Kinross Joan of Garioch xlv. 298 The silent horsemen all about me were figures from a story-book of old romance.
1943 G. Greene Ministry of Fear i. ii. 29 Murderers..are very, very seldom..gentlemen. Outside of story-books.
2009 N.Y. Times (National ed.) 29 Sept. b3/1 For parents, this isn't going to replace snuggle time with a storybook.
B. adj. (chiefly attributive).
Characteristic of the idealized, romantic, or magical world of children's stories. Cf. fairy tale adj.
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1844 C. M. Yonge Abbeychurch xiv. 298 It is only a failure in story-book justice. Lucy is too noble a creature to be rewarded in story-book fashion.
1887 Mrs. Ryffel Mademoiselle's Story xx. 141 Some will come to the story book ending, and be happy for ever after.
1931 R. G. Plowhead Lucretia Ann on Oregon Trail i. 20 Lucretia Ann had a grandmother who lived in a little home next door. A regular story book grandmother, the kind about whom every grandmotherless little girl dreams. She was silver haired, roly-poly, and sweet.
1973 P. Moyes Curious Affair of Third Dog iii. 32 I call that a real story-book happy ending.
2002 Outside Nov. 58/2 The Auvergne, a long-time tourist backwater with storybook villages, gooey peasant-made cheeses, and huge expanses of uncultivated grassland.
Compounds
General attributive and objective, as storybook character, storybook writer, etc.
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1839 C. Dickens Nicholas Nickleby liii. 530 None of your story-book writers will ever make as good a book as this, I warrant me.
1889 B. Gilman St. Theresa of Avila i. 6 Children are sometimes detected trying to imitate the doings of their favorite story-book characters.
1913 E. C. Bentley Trent's Last Case xv. 309 The national fondness for doing things in a story-book style.
1958 G. H. Hildreth Teaching Reading x. 199 Children who gain the reading technique through extensive chart work are prepared to go into easy story-book reading.
1986 E. E. M. Roberts Nonfiction for Children ii. 22 She created characters but did not concern herself with a setting or a plot, as a traditional storybook author might.
2012 Vanity Fair Nov. 167/1 It was as if one of those storybook fairies..had waved her wand over Miami.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2015; most recently modified version published online June 2022).
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n.adj.1570