one-story

The compound adjective 'one-story' is a transparent combination of the numeral 'one' and the noun 'story', denoting a floor level. 'One' originates from Proto-Germanic 'ainaz', related to the concept of singularity. 'Story' in the architectural sense has a fascinating semantic shift from the Latin 'historia' (a narrative of events) through Medieval Latin, where the levels of a building were associated with tiers of painted or sculpted narrative windows. Thus, a 'one-story' building literally means a building of a single tier or level, its logic directly mapping the count of floors to the architectural form.

Structure: one (sense) + story (sense) - one: From Old English 'ān', meaning "one, single, alone". It functions as a numerical determiner/modifier. - story: From Medieval Latin 'historia', meaning "history, tale, account". In architectural context, it refers to a floor or level of a building, a sense derived from the practice of painting narrative scenes ("stories") on windows or walls of multi-level buildings.