fable
English
Etymology
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From Middle English, borrowed from Old French fable, from Latin fābula, from fārī (“to speak, say”) + -bula (“instrumental suffix”). See ban, and compare fabulous, fame.
Pronunciation
Noun
fable (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.
- Synonym: morality play
- Any story told to excite wonder; common talk; the theme of talk.
- 1 Timothy 4:7,
- Old wives' fables.
- 1842, Alfred Tennyson, The Gardener's Daughter; or, The Pictures:
- […] we grew / The fable of the city where we dwelt.
- Synonym: legend
- 1 Timothy 4:7,
- Fiction; untruth; falsehood.
- 1711, Joseph Addison, The Spectator, volume the fourth, no. 264:
- I say it wou'd 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 plot, story, or connected series of events forming the subject of an epic or dramatic poem.
- 1695, John Dryden, A Parallel betwixt Painting and Poetry:
- For the moral (as Bossu observes,) is the first business of the poet, as being the groundwork of his instruction. This being formed, he contrives such a design, or fable, as may be most suitable to the moral;
Derived terms
Translations
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Verb
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- (intransitive, archaic) To compose fables; hence, to write or speak fiction; to write or utter what is not true.
- 1591, William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 1, Act IV, Scene 2,[1]
- He fables not; I hear the enemy:
- Out, some light horsemen, and peruse their wings.
- 1706, Matthew Prior, “An Ode, Humbly Inscribed to the Queen,” stanza 17, in Samuel Johnson (editor), The Works of the English Poets, London, 1779, Volume 30, p. 254,[2]
- Vain now the tales which fabling poets tell,
- That wavering Conquest still desires to rove!
- In Marlborough’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,[3]
- He fables, yet speaks truth.
- 1591, William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 1, Act IV, Scene 2,[1]
- (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.
- 1674, John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book VI, lines 288-292,[4]
- […] err not, that so shall end
- The strife which thou callest evil, but we style
- The strife of glory; which we mean to win,
- Or turn this Heaven itself into the Hell
- Thou fablest […]
- 1691, Arthur Gorges (translator), The Wisdom of the Ancients by Francis Bacon (1609), London, “Cassandra, or, Divination,” [5]
- The Poets Fable, That Apollo being enamoured of Cassandra, was by her many shifts and cunning slights still deluded in his Desire […]
- 1674, John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book VI, lines 288-292,[4]
Derived terms
Translations
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Further reading
- “fable”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
Anagrams
French
Etymology
From Old French fable, borrowed from Latin fabula.
Pronunciation
Noun
fable f (plural fables)
Synonyms
Further reading
- “fable”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
Norwegian Bokmål
Etymology
From the noun fabel, ultimately from Latin fabula, from fā(rī) (“to speak, say”) + -bula (“instrumental suffix”).
Pronunciation
Verb
fable (imperative fabl or fable, present tense fabler, passive fables, simple past and past participle fabla or fablet)
Derived terms
References
- “fable” in The Bokmål Dictionary.
Norwegian Nynorsk
Etymology
From the noun fabel, ultimately from Latin fabula, from fā(rī) (“to speak, say”) + -bula (“instrumental suffix”).
Pronunciation
Verb
fable (imperative fabl, present tense fablar, simple past and past participle fabla)
Derived terms
References
- “fable” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.
Old French
Etymology
Noun
fable oblique singular, f (oblique plural fables, nominative singular fable, nominative plural fables)
- fable, story
- circa 1250, Rutebeuf, Ci encoumence la lections d'ypocrisie et d'umilité:
- Ne vos wel faire longue fable
- I don't want to tell you a long story
Synonyms
Descendants
Spanish
Verb
fable
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms borrowed from Old French
- English terms derived from Old French
- English terms derived from Latin
- English 2-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio links
- Rhymes:English/eɪbəl
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English countable nouns
- English terms with quotations
- English intransitive verbs
- English terms with archaic senses
- English transitive verbs
- French terms inherited from Old French
- French terms derived from Old French
- French terms borrowed from Latin
- French terms derived from Latin
- French 1-syllable words
- French terms with IPA pronunciation
- French terms with audio links
- French lemmas
- French nouns
- French countable nouns
- French feminine nouns
- Norwegian Bokmål terms with IPA pronunciation
- Norwegian Bokmål lemmas
- Norwegian Bokmål verbs
- Norwegian Nynorsk terms with IPA pronunciation
- Norwegian Nynorsk lemmas
- Norwegian Nynorsk verbs
- Old French terms borrowed from Latin
- Old French terms derived from Latin
- Old French lemmas
- Old French nouns
- Old French feminine nouns
- Old French terms with quotations
- Spanish non-lemma forms
- Spanish verb forms
- Spanish forms of verbs ending in -ar