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
Simon Vozick-Levinson, Rolling Stone, 29 Oct. 2024
The saga of Eddie Brock and Venom has ended, at least for now.
—Richard Newby, The Hollywood Reporter, 29 Oct. 2024
The film explores an early chapter in the saga of the titular haunted toy and stars Annabelle Wallis as a pregnant housewife and doll collector.
—Wesley Stenzel, EW.com, 28 Oct. 2024
Horror films still offer a path to profitability on low budgets that no other genre can claim, which is why even the most squeamish filmmakers should celebrate the remarkable box-office success demonstrated by Damien Leone’s gory saga of the depraved Art the Clown.
—Christian Zilko, IndieWire, 25 Oct. 2024
See all Example Sentences for saga 
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'saga.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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Cite this Entry
“Saga.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/saga. Accessed 5 Nov. 2024.
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saga
noun
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