storey
Pluralstoreys
US spellingstory
- 1Any of the levels that a building or ship is divided into, one above another.
Each storey of the old mill has been turned into offices.
Planners turned down a twelve-storey tower beside the canal.
UsageMost often used in counting: a three-storey house, with no plural before a noun. For a position, people usually say on the third floor.
Note
A floor took its name from a tale: storey is the same word as story. Medieval buildings, churches above all, carried friezes telling stories in pictures along their upper levels, and the name probably passed from the pictures to the levels. The -ey spelling now keeps the floor apart, though the plural was long stories.
- 2Each of the parts stacked one above the other in the shape of letters such as a and g.
Many typefaces draw the lowercase a with a second storey arching over the bowl.
Handwriting usually turns the double-storey g into a simpler single-storey form.
Note
Type designers count storeys to tell the two shapes of a and g apart. A double-storey a arches a stroke over its bowl; the single-storey a, usual in handwriting, is a bowl and a stem. A double-storey g stacks two loops joined by a link, while the single-storey g has one bowl and an open tail, and the IPA traditionally writes the voiced velar stop with the single-storey g, though either shape is accepted.
Checked 4 Nov 2026 · 7 facts
- Single-storey and double-storey distinguish constructions of lowercase a and g. wiki.wordsoftype.com
- A double-storey a has an arc above its bowl. en.wikipedia.org
- The single-storey a, commonly used in handwriting, consists of a bowl and a stem. en.wikipedia.org
- The two bowls of a double-storey g are connected by a link. monotype.com
- A single-storey g has one closed bowl and an open tail. en.wikipedia.org
- The traditional IPA symbol for the voiced velar stop is single-storey g. en.wikipedia.org
- Both single-storey and double-storey g are accepted for the voiced velar stop. scripts.sil.org
- 3A building as a whole, particularly a large or grand one.
Note
Older English could use storey for a whole building, not just one level of it. That use has died out: a writer today says building or edifice, and a modern reader would take the word as a floor of a building. When it turns up in an old text, it is worth checking whether a whole structure is meant.
Checked 4 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Storey historically meant a whole building. en.wiktionary.org
- The whole-building sense is obsolete. en.wiktionary.org
Practice
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Origin
From Middle English story, via Medieval Latin historia ("narrative, illustration, frieze"), from Ancient Greek historíā ("learning through research"); it is a doublet of story and history. The building sense probably arose from the narrative friezes on the upper levels of medieval buildings, especially churches. A suggested origin in Old French estoree ("a building") seems unlikely, since historia already meant "storey of a building" in Anglo-Latin.