fable
Etymology
This text is extracted from the Wiktionary and it is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license | Terms and conditions | Privacy policy 0.003
Etymology
From Middle English, borrowed from Old French fable, from Latin fābula, from fārī + -bula ("instrumental suffix").
Pronunciation Nounfable (plural fables)
A fictitious narrative intended to enforce some useful truth or precept, usually with animals, etc. as characters; an apologue. Prototypically, Aesop's Fables. - Synonyms: morality play
- Any story told to excite wonder; common talk; the theme of talk.
- Synonyms: legend
- Fiction; untruth; falsehood.
- 1712 January 13 (Gregorian calendar), [Joseph Addison; Richard Steele et al.], “WEDNESDAY, January 2, 1711–1712”, in The Spectator, number 264; republished in Alexander Chalmers, editor, The Spectator; a New Edition, […], volume III, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton & Company, 1853, →OCLC ↗, page 316 ↗:
- I say it would look like a fable to report that this gentleman gives away all which is the overplus of a great fortune by secret methods to other men.
- The spelling has been modernized.
- The plot, story, or connected series of events forming the subject of an epic or dramatic poem.
- Russian: небыли́ца
- Russian: небыли́ца
fable (fables, present participle fabling; simple past and past participle fabled)
- (intransitive, archaic) To compose fables; hence, to write or speak fiction; to write or utter what is not true.
- 1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Sixt”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC ↗, [Act IV, scene ii], page 111 ↗, column 2:
- He Fables not, I heare the enemie: / Out ſome light Horſemen, and peruſe their Wings.
- 1709, Mat[thew] Prior, “An Ode, Humbly Inscrib’d to the Queen”, in Poems on Several Occasions, London: […] Jacob Tonson […], →OCLC ↗, stanza XVII, page 287 ↗:
- Vain now the Tales which fab’ling Poets tell, / That wav’ring Conqueſt ſtill deſires to rove; / In Marlbrô’s Camp the Goddeſs knows to dwell: / Long as the Hero’s Life remains her Love.
- 1852, Matthew Arnold, Empedocles on Etna, Act II, in Empedocles on Etna and Other Poems, London: B. Fellowes, p. 50,
- He fables, yet speaks truth.
- (transitive, archaic) To make up; to devise, and speak of, as true or real; to tell of falsely; to recount in the form of a fable.
- Synonyms: make up, invent, feign, devise
- 1667, John Milton, “Book VI ↗”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC ↗; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC ↗, lines 288–292:
- […] erre not that ſo ſhall end / The ſtrife of Glorie: which we mean to win, / Or turn this Heav’n itſelf into the Hell / Thou fableſt […]
- German: fabulieren
This text is extracted from the Wiktionary and it is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license | Terms and conditions | Privacy policy 0.003
