Wiktionary:Word of the day/2024/December 30

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just-so story n

A story which supposedly explains the beginning or early development of a current state of affairs; a myth, a pourquoi story. (literature) A story, especially one for children, featuring animals as characters. (social sciences, especially anthropology, philosophy, chiefly derogatory) An untestable explanation for something, such as a form of behaviour, a biological trait, or a cultural practice. The English writer Rudyard Kipling, whose series of short stories called Just So Stories (published in book form in 1902) gave rise to the term, was born on this day in 1865.

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