Fable
Contents
English
Noun
Fable (plural Fables)- A fictitious narration intended to enforce some useful truth or precept, usually with animals, birds etc as characters; an apologue. Prototypically, Aesop's Fables.
- Any story told to excite wonder; common talk; the theme of talk.
- 1 Timothy 4:7,
- Old wives' fables.
- Alfred Tennyson,
- We grew The fable of the city where we dwelt.
- 1 Timothy 4:7,
- Fiction; untruth; falsehood.
- Joseph Addison,
- It would look like a fable to report that this gentleman gives away a great fortune by secret methods.
- Joseph Addison,
Synonyms
- (fiction to enforce a useful precept): morality play
- (story to excite wonder): legend
- (falsehood):
Verb
Fable (third-person singular simple present 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.
- 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.
- Shakespeare, 1 Henry VI, IV-ii:
- (transitive, archaic) To feign; to invent; to devise, and speak of, as true or real; to tell of falsely.
- John Milton:
- The hell thou fablest.
- John Milton:
Thesaurus
Marchen, Western, Western story, Westerner, action, adventure story, allegory, anagnorisis, angle, apologue, architectonics, architecture, argument, atmosphere, background, bedtime story, canard, catastrophe, characterization, color, complication, concoction, continuity, contrivance, denouement, design, detective story, development, device, episode, extravaganza, fabliau, fabrication, fairy tale, falling action, fantasy, fiction, figment, folk story, folktale, forgery, gest, ghost story, gimmick, horse opera, incident, invention, legend, line, local color, love story, mood, motif, movement, mystery, mystery story, myth, mythology, mythos, nursery tale, parable, peripeteia, plan, plot, recognition, rising action, romance, scheme, science fiction, secondary plot, shocker, slant, space fiction, space opera, story, structure, subject, subplot, suspense story, switch, thematic development, theme, thriller, tone, topic, twist, whodunit, work of fiction
Etymology
From Middle English, from Old French fable, from Latin fabula, from fari (“to speak, say”). See Ban, and compare fabulous, fame.
Pronunciation
Translations
Noun
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- The translations below need to be checked.
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Verb
References
- Fable in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
French
Etymology
Latin fabula
Pronunciation
Noun
Fable f. (plural Fables)
Synonyms
Old French
Etymology
Latin fabula
Noun
Fable f. (oblique plural Fables, nominative singular Fable, nominative plural Fables)
Synonyms
- English nouns
- English verbs
- English archaic terms
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms derived from Old French
- English terms derived from Latin
- Pages with broken file links
- Check translations
- Translations to be checked (Hebrew)
- French terms derived from Latin
- French nouns
- French feminine nouns
- French countable nouns
- Old French terms derived from Latin
- Old French nouns
- Old French feminine nouns
