saga

noun — 2 senses

saga

noun

UK /ˈsɑːɡə/ · US /ˈsɑɡə/

Etymology 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”).

1

An Old Norse (Icelandic) prose narrative, especially one dealing with family or social histories and legends.

2

Something with the qualities of such a saga; an epic, a long story.

  • 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 23, “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:
1 more example
  • 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:
Derived terms
Aga saga, minisaga, saga boy, sagalike, sagaman, supersaga

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.