European, by choice, cut short a long story (4)
I believe the answer is:
epic
'a long story' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'european by choice cut short' is the wordplay.
'european by' becomes 'e' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'choice' becomes 'pick' ('pick' can be a synonym of 'choice').
'cut short' means to remove the last letter.
'pick' with its last letter taken off is 'pic'.
'e'+'pic'='EPIC'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for epic that I've seen before include "Colossal" , "On a grand scale, like heroic poem" , "Long classic film" , "imposing" , "A long poem or book with adventurous theme" .)