Adjacent Words

Fable definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

FABLE, n. [L., Gr. The radical sense is that which is spoken or told.]
1. A feigned story or tale, intended to instruct or amuse; a fictitious narration intended to enforce some useful truth or precept.
Jothams fable of the trees is the oldest extant, and as beautiful as any made since.
2. Fiction in general; as, the story is all a fable.
3. An idle story; vicious or vulgar fictions.
But refuse profane and old wives fables. 1 Timothy 4.
4. The plot, or connected series of events, in an epic or dramatic poem.
The moral is the first business of the poet; this being formed, he contrives such a design or fable as may be most suitable to the moral.
5. Falsehood; a softer term for a lie.
FABLE, v.i.
1. To feign; to write fiction.
Vain now the tales which fabling poets tell.
2. To tell falsehoods; as, he fables not.
FABLE, v.t. To feign; to invent; to devise and speak of, as true or real.
The hell thou fablest.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: a deliberately false or improbable account [syn: fabrication, fiction, fable]
2: a short moral story (often with animal characters) [syn: fable, parable, allegory, apologue]
3: a story about mythical or supernatural beings or events [syn: legend, fable]

Merriam Webster's

I. noun Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Latin fabula conversation, story, play, from fari to speak — more at ban Date: 14th century a fictitious narrative or statement: as a. a legendary story of supernatural happenings b. a narration intended to enforce a useful truth; especially one in which animals speak and act like human beings c. falsehood, lie II. verb (fabled; fabling) Date: 14th century intransitive verb archaic to tell fables transitive verb to talk or write about as if true • fabler noun

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n. & v. --n. 1 a a story, esp. a supernatural one, not based on fact. b a tale, esp. with animals as characters, conveying a moral. 2 (collect.) myths and legendary tales (in fable). 3 a a false statement; a lie. b a thing only supposed to exist. --v. 1 intr. tell fictitious tales. 2 tr. describe fictitiously. 3 tr. (as fabled adj.) celebrated in fable; famous, legendary. Derivatives: fabler n. Etymology: ME f. OF fabler f. L fabulari f. fabula discourse f. fari speak

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Fable Fa"ble, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Fabled; p. pr. & vb. n. Fabling.] To compose fables; hence, to write or speak fiction; to write or utter what is not true. ``He Fables not.'' --Shak. Vain now the tales which fabling poets tell. --Prior. He fables, yet speaks truth. --M. Arnold.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Fable Fa"ble, v. t. To feign; to invent; to devise, and speak of, as true or real; to tell of falsely. The hell thou fablest. --Milton.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Fable Fa"ble (f[=a]"b'l), n. [F., fr. L. fabula, fr. fari to speak, say. See Ban, and cf. Fabulous, Fame.] 1. A Feigned story or tale, intended to instruct or amuse; a fictitious narration intended to enforce some useful truth or precept; an apologue. See the Note under Apologue. Jotham's fable of the trees is the oldest extant. --Addison. 2. The plot, story, or connected series of events, forming the subject of an epic or dramatic poem. The moral is the first business of the poet; this being formed, he contrives such a design or fable as may be most suitable to the moral. --Dryden. 3. Any story told to excite wonder; common talk; the theme of talk. ``Old wives' fables. '' --1 Tim. iv. 7. We grew The fable of the city where we dwelt. --Tennyson. 4. Fiction; untruth; falsehood. It would look like a fable to report that this gentleman gives away a great fortune by secret methods. --Addison.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(fables) 1. A fable is a story which teaches a moral lesson. Fables sometimes have animals as the main characters. ...the fable of the tortoise and the hare... Each tale has the timeless quality of fable. N-VAR 2. You can describe a statement or explanation that is untrue but that many people believe as fable. Is reincarnation fact or fable? ...little-known horticultural facts and fables. = myth N-VAR

Easton's Bible Dictionary

applied in the New Testament to the traditions and speculations, "cunningly devised fables", of the Jews on religious questions (1 Tim. 1:4; 4:7; 2 Tim. 4:4; Titus 1:14; 2 Pet. 1:16). In such passages the word means anything false and unreal. But the word is used as almost equivalent to parable. Thus we have (1) the fable of Jotham, in which the trees are spoken of as choosing a king (Judg. 9:8-15); and (2) that of the cedars of Lebanon and the thistle as Jehoash's answer to Amaziah (2 Kings 14:9).

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

fa'-b'-l (muthos):

(1) Primitive man conceives of the objects around him as possessing his own characteristics. Consequently in his stories, beasts, trees, rocks, etc., think, talk and act exactly as if they were human beings. Of course, but little advance in knowledge was needed to put an end to this mode of thought, but the form of story-telling developed by it persisted and is found in the folk-tales of all nations. More particularly, the archaic form of story was used for the purpose of moral instruction, and when so used is termed the fable. Modern definitions distinguish it from the parable

(a) by its use of characters of lower intelligence than man (although reasoning and speaking like men), and

(b) by its lesson for this life only. But, while these distinctions serve some practical purpose in distinguishing (say) the fables of Aesop from the parables of Christ, they are of little value to the student of folk-lore. For fable, parable, allegory, etc., are all evolutions from a common stock, and they tend to blend with each other.

See ALLEGORY; PARABLE.

(2) The Semitic mind is peculiarly prone to allegorical expression, and a modern Arabian storyteller will invent a fable or a parable as readily as he will talk. And we may be entirely certain that the very scanty appearance of fables in the Old Testament is due only to the character of its material and not at all to an absence of fables from the mouths of the Jews of old. Only two examples have reached us. In Jud 9:7-15 Jotham mocks the choice of AbimeItch as king with the fable of the trees that could find no tree that would accept the trouble of the kingship except the worthless bramble. And in 2Ki 14:9 Jehoash ridicules the pretensions of Amaziah with the story of the thistle that wished to make a royal alliance with the cedar. Yet that the distinction between fable and allegory, etc., is artificial is seen in Isa 5:1,2, where the vineyard is assumed to possess a deliberate will to be perverse.

(3) In the New Testament, "fable" is found in 1Ti 1:4; 4:7; 2Ti 4:4; Tit 1:14; 2Pe 1:16, as the translation of muthos ("myth"). The sense here differs entirely from that discussed above, and "fable" means a (religious) story that has no connection with reality--contrasted with the knowledge of an eyewitness in 2Pe 1:16. The exact nature of these "fables" is of course something out of our knowledge, but the mention in connection with them of "endless genealogies" in 1Ti 1:4 points with high probability to some form of Gnostic speculation that interposed a chain of eons between God and the world. In some of the Gnostic systems that we know, these chains are described with a prolixity so interminable (the Pistis Sophia is the best example) as to justify well the phrase "old wives' fables" in 1Ti 4:7. But that these passages have Gnostic reference need not tell against the Pauline authorship of the Pastorals, as a fairly well developed "Gnosticism" is recognizable in a passage as early as Col 2, and as the description of the fables as Jewish in Tit 1:14 (compare Tit 3:9) is against 2nd-century references. But for details the commentaries on the Pastoral Epistles must be consulted. It is worth noting that in 2Ti 4:4 the adoption of these fables is said to be the result of dabbling in the dubious. This manner of losing one's hold on reality is, unfortunately, something not confined to the apostolic age.

Burton Scott Easton

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

I. n. 1. Story (fictitious), tale, parable, apologue, allegory, myth, legend. 2. Plot, action, series of events. 3. Fiction, falsehood, lie, untruth, forgery, invention, fabrication, figment, coinage of the brain. II. v. n. Tell fables, make fables, fabricate tales, write fiction. III. v. a. Feign, invent, fabricate.

Moby 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