diegesis.

1. The world, events, and circumstances represented within a narrative.

2. The telling of events through narration, distinguished in some theories from direct imitation or enactment.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• within the diegesis
• a story’s diegesis

On the page

The music belonged to the diegesis because the character switched on the radio.

The narrator’s commentary crossed a boundary the diegesis otherwise maintained.

Usage notes

Primary category: literary. Forms: Singular diegesis; plural diegeses. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings.