fable

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[edit] English

[edit] Etymology

From Middle English, from Old French, from Latin fabula, from fari (to speak, say). See Ban, and compare fabulous, fame.

[edit] Pronunciation

[edit] Noun

Singular
fable

Plural
fables

fable (plural fables)

  1. A fictitious narration intended to enforce some useful truth or precept, usually with animals, birds etc as characters; an apologue. Prototypically, Aesop's Fables.
  2. Any story told to excite wonder; common talk; the theme of talk.
  3. Fiction; untruth; falsehood.
    • Joseph Addison,
      It would look like a fable to report that this gentleman gives away a great fortune by secret methods.

[edit] Synonyms

  • (fiction to enforce a useful precept): morality play
  • (story to excite wonder):
  • (falsehood):

[edit] Translations

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[edit] Verb

Infinitive
to fable

Third person singular
fables

Simple past
fabled

Past participle
fabled

Present participle
fabling

to fable (third-person singular simple present fables, present participle fabling, simple past and past participle fabled)

  1. (intransitive, archaic) To compose fables; hence, to write or speak fiction ; to write or utter what is not true.
    • Shakespeare, 1 Henry VI, IV-ii:
      He Fables not.
    • Matthew Prior:
      Vain now the tales which fabling poets tell.
    • Matthew Arnold:
      He fables, yet speaks truth.
  2. (transitive, archaic) To feign; to invent; to devise, and speak of, as true or real; to tell of falsely.
    • The hell thou fablest.

[edit] Translations

[edit] References

Part or all of this page has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.