fabulate

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English

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Etymology 1

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From Latin fābulātus, perfect passive participle of fābulor (tell stories, chat), from fābula (fable).

Verb

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fabulate (third-person singular simple present fabulates, present participle fabulating, simple past and past participle fabulated)

  1. (intransitive) To tell invented stories, often those that involve fantasy, such as fables.
    • 1990, Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, Tractatus Brevus, Kluwer, page 38:
      Human fears, needs, dreams release the latent propensities of the subliminal soul, and to respond to them the fabulating imagination sets to work.
    • 1992, Donald C. Goellnicht, "Tang Ao in America: Male Subject Positions in China Men, Shirley Geok-lin Lim and Amy Ling (editors), Reading the Literatures of Asian America, Temple University Press, →ISBN, page 205:
      The objects remain those of male fantasies, but from the start Maxine associates the ability to fantasize or fabulate with women and with Cantonese: []
    • 2006, Jérémie Valentin, “Gille Deleuze’s Political Posture”, chapter 12 of Constantin V. Boundas (editor), Deleuze and Philosophy, Edinburgh University Press, →ISBN, page 196:
      It is only this posture that permits him to discharge his function as a chief: to fabulate and to summon up the missing people.
  2. (transitive, archaic) To relate as or in the manner of a fable.
    • 1990, Marianne Kalinke, Bridal-quest Romance in Medieval Iceland, page 74:
      Anyone who considers it a pleasure to compose short stories or to fabulate a tale, must remain silent and say nothing of her beauty.
  3. (intransitive, obsolete) To tell fables, to narrate with fables.
    • 1630, Thomas Adams, “The Taming of the Tongve”, in The Workes of Tho: Adams[1], page 143:
      The Fort is ſo barricadoed, that it is hard ſcaling it : the refractary Rebell ſo guarded with Euill and Poyſon, ſo warded with unruly and deadly ; as if it were with Gyants in an Inchanted Towre, as they fabulate ; so no man can tame it.
Derived terms
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Etymology 2

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Coined around 1934 by folklorist Carl von Sydow to contrast with memorate.[1]

Noun

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fabulate (countable and uncountable, plural fabulates)

  1. A folk story that is not entirely believable.
    • 1974, Linda Dégh, Andrew Vázsonyi, “The memorate and the proto-memorate”, in The Journal of American Folklore, volume 87, →DOI, page 232:
      It is a rule, though, that each fabulate, as well as every other narrative that requires credence or pretense or at least the possibility of belief as its ingredient, is based on either a truly existing or an assumed memorate [] or something similar.
  2. (specifically) A folk story that is told for entertainment, and not intended to be taken as true.
    • 1948, Carl von Sydow, Selected Papers on Folklore, page 87:
      To jocular fabulates (Sherzfabulate) I place inter alia some of the “Tales of the Stupid Ogre” in Aarne’s Type Register.
See also
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References

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  1. ^ Bill Ellis (1997) “Fabulate”, in Thomas Green, editor, Folklore: An Encyclopedia of Beliefs, Customs, Tales, Music, and Art, →ISBN

Latin

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Participle

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fābulāte

  1. vocative masculine singular of fābulātus

Spanish

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Verb

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fabulate

  1. second-person singular voseo imperative of fabular combined with te