Original means the first version of something, before any copies were made. The original Mona Lisa hangs in the Louvre Museum in Paris. Every poster or photograph of it is just a copy. When archaeologists discover an original letter written by Abraham Lincoln in his own handwriting, it's far more valuable than printed versions of the same letter.

The word also describes something new and creative, not imitated from something else. An original idea is one you thought of yourself, not one you borrowed from someone else. When a composer creates an original piece of music, she's writing something fresh, not copying an existing song. Teachers can usually tell the difference between original work and copied work.

When you call something original, you might mean it's unusual or inventive in a good way. “That's an original approach to solving the problem” means someone found a clever new method nobody had tried before.

In everyday speech, people often shorten phrases: “Is this the original?” means “Is this the first one?” When a movie advertises itself as telling “an original story,” it's promising something you haven't seen before, not another sequel or remake.