Metadiegetic

//ˌmɛt.ə.daɪ.ɪˈd͡ʒɛt.ɪk// adj

adj ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Pertaining to a secondary narrative embedded within the primary narrative (a story within a story).

    "A particularly striking example appears in Hawthorne's next romance, The House of the Seven Gables, in which Chapter 13 consists entirely of a metadiegetic narrative entitled "Alice Pyncheon," composed and read by the diegetic character Holgrave."

Synonyms

All synonyms
hypodiegetichypodiegetic

Example

More examples

"A particularly striking example appears in Hawthorne's next romance, The House of the Seven Gables, in which Chapter 13 consists entirely of a metadiegetic narrative entitled "Alice Pyncheon," composed and read by the diegetic character Holgrave."

Etymology

From meta- + diegetic.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.