apologue

English

Etymology

Borrowed from French apologue, from Latin apologus from Ancient Greek ἀπόλογος (apólogos, “story, tale, fable”) from ἀπό- (apó-, “off, away from”) + λόγος (lógos, “speech”).

Noun

apologue (countable and uncountable, plural apologues)

1. a short story with a moral, often involving talking animals or objects; a fable
   • 1848, William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair, Chapter 7:

     "Still I must bear my hard lot as well as I can—at least, I shall be amongst gentlefolks, and not with vulgar city people": and she fell to thinking of her Russell Square friends with that very same philosophical bitterness with which, in a certain apologue, the fox is represented as speaking of the grapes.

2. (rhetoric) use of fable to persuade the audience

Related terms

• apologetic

Translations

a short story with a moral, often involving talking animals or objects

• Bashkir: мәҫәл (məśəl)
• Catalan: apòleg (ca) m
• Czech: bajka (cs) f
• French: apologue (fr) m
• German: Lehrfabel f, Fabel (de) f
• Irish: apalóg f, fabhalscéal m, fáithscéal m, uirscéal m
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Italian: apologo (it) m
• Latin: apologus m
• Polish: bajka (pl) f
• Portuguese: apólogo m
• Russian: ба́сня (ru) f (básnja), нравоучи́тельная ба́сня f (nravoučítelʹnaja básnja), аполо́г (ru) m (apológ)
• Spanish: apólogo m

rhetoric: use of fable to persuade the audience

• French: apologue (fr) m
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Russian: ба́йка (ru) f (bájka), ба́сня (ru) f (básnja)

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French

Etymology

From Latin apologus, from Ancient Greek ἀπόλογος (apólogos).

Noun

apologue m (plural apologues)

1. apologue

Further reading

• “apologue”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.