noun

• A story or explanation intended to make someone feel sympathy for the person relating it.

  More example sentences

  • ‘Emma fell for every sob story she was told’
  • ‘I'm not pleading for sympathy or giving you a sob story, that's not my style, but it is really, really getting to me.’
  • ‘As careful reporters and producers demonstrated over and over again, a story that makes you cry need not be a sob story, and should not be.’
  • ‘He hands over his expense money in an airport when he falls for a sob story from a woman.’
  • ‘‘It's not a sob story because I think all writers have a point where they burn out,’ says the 32-year-old.’
  • ‘I told her a sob story about a math assignment, a philosophy paper and computer science midterm in a way that I thought would assure a remedy for my chronic procrastination.’
  • ‘Then he goes into the sob story of not finding work.’
  • ‘When she called Bell she could have pulled out the standard sob story, but instead she managed to convince the woman at accounts just how great these boots really were.’
  • ‘A conwoman who has been waking people in the middle of the night, spinning a sob story to trick them out of money has been foiled by an 80-year-old woman.’
  • ‘I stumbled on this article from CNN which details the sob story of a 15 year old boy found guilty of murder.’
  • ‘Another one I don't want to hear is the sob story about people working at the big financial firms who didn't get raises.’
  • ‘Giving a client a sob story to elicit money is usually a bad idea.’
  • ‘You ask mid-sentence in your sob story about being used for nothing more than knowing your way around a computer.’
  • ‘The abuse ranges from violence in the home to financial abuse where a person is deliberately befriended and told a sob story so they leave cash in their will.’
  • ‘He had refused it, but she told him the same sob story she told me.’
  • ‘Best of all last night was that although Alicia gave a bit of a sob story about her upbringing she didn't focus on it as much as last week.’
  • ‘Female contestants vied to tell the weepiest sob story to win the bushel of prizes.’
  • ‘She made the cut not because she was a great singer but because she had a sob story.’
  • ‘She was quick to sympathize and usually only a sob story could sway her vote unless the teller seemed too pathetic to her.’
  • ‘He had heard the entire sob story during a night with her.’
  • ‘Since you're a soft touch for a sob story, I thought I'd pass this on.’