FABLE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Fable

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/fˈeɪbəl/ Listen

noun

Fable n.

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." Note: A fable may have talking animals anthropomorphically cast as humans representing different character types, sometimes illustrating some moral principle; as, Aesop's Fables.

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."

Any story told to excite wonder; common talk; the theme of talk. "Old wives' fables. " "We grew The fable of the city where we dwelt."

Fiction; untruth; falsehood. "It would look like a fable to report that this gentleman gives away a great fortune by secret methods."

verb

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

Fable v. i. (past & past part. fabled; pres. part. fabling) To compose fables; hence, to write or speak fiction; to write or utter what is not true. "He Fables not." "Vain now the tales which fabling poets tell." "He fables, yet speaks truth."

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Etymology of 'Fable'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Fable" Quotes from Famous Books

... features. Sir Thomas assures us that his life, up to the period of the 'Religio Medici,' was a 'miracle of thirty years, which to relate were not a history, but a piece of poetry, and would sound to common ears like a fable.' Johnson, with his usual sense, observes that it is rather difficult to detect the miraculous element in any part of the story open to our observation. 'Surely,' he says, 'a man may visit France and Italy, reside at Montpelier and Padua, and ...

— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen

... narrow ways To heights of Roman speech. The youth, alert, Caught at the offer; and for years of nights, The house asleep, he groped his twilight way With lexicon and rule, through ancient story, Or fable fine, embalmed in Latin old; Wherein his knowledge of the English tongue, Through reading many books, much aided him— For best is like in all ...

— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald

... made a sort of myth of him? Isn't he only a fable to us now? And haven't we got real facts ...

— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer

... the fable reported by Arrian (in Indicis) of Hercules having searched the Indian Ocean, to find the pearl with which he ...

— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... Hardenberg taught: "St. Augustine and many other fathers write that the body of Christ is circumscribed by a certain space in heaven, and I regard this as the true doctrine of the Church." (Tschackert, 191.) Hardenberg also published the fable hatched at Heidelberg (Heidelberger Landluege, indirectly referred to also in the Formula of Concord, 981, 28), but immediately refuted by Joachim Moerlin, according to which Luther is said, toward the end of his life, to have confessed to Melanchthon that he had ...

— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente

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