fable Hear it!

fable Definition

fa·ble (bəl)

noun

  1. a fictitious story meant to teach a moral lesson: the characters are usually talking animals
  2. a myth or legend
  3. a story that is not true; falsehood
  4. Archaic the plot of a literary work

Etymology: ME < OFr < L fabula, a story < fari, to speak: see fame

intransitive verb, transitive verb -·bled, -·bling

to write or tell (fables, legends, or falsehoods)

fable Related Forms

fa·bler noun

fable Synonyms

fable

n.

fable Usage Examples

Preposition: of

  • man: PICKTHAL: That, when Our revelations are recited unto him, he saith: Mere fables of the men of old.
  • love: More than a half century later, this fable of love and loneliness has lost none of its power.

Possessives

child: Can you think of a famous children's fable about someone or something being different, being the odd-one-out?

Converse of object

  • devise: Bankers, men of a more positive nature, devised a specious fable.
  • write: He wrote a fantastic fable which he wanted to read to the rest of the class.
  • tell: The poet Hesiod tells a fable of Zeus creating a race of bronze men from Ashes.
  • know: Children write a play script based on a well known fable or story.
  • illustrate: Sir John Tenniel, who was already famous for his cartoons in Punch, a comic for adults, illustrated the fable.
  • create: Even using such broad strokes, Fridriksson could have created a more compelling fable.

Adjective modifier

  • timeless: It's a timeless, paranoid fable that grabs at the emotions, negates the intellect, and reduces everything to absolutes.
  • moral: We have even the same inset moral fable, in the form of the man of the hill's narrative.
  • comic: The play also just misses the tone of comic fable that Williams intended to give it an air of innocence.
  • ancient: Cosmos, according to the ancient fables of the Greeks, emerged from the uterine gulf of chaos.
  • classic: A twist on classic monster fables, CURSED unleashes ancient omens into the modern world.
  • Chinese: The story told in Brecht's The Caucasian Chalk Circle is borrowed from an ancient Chinese fable and echoes the Judgment of Solomon.

Noun used with modifier

  • animal: The feature-length ' Tale of the Fox ' , Starewicz ' best-known work, is a technically audacious, gleefully wicked medieval animal fable.
  • beast: What else is this story, beside a beast fable?
  • adult: A warning for the dehumanized Japanese society, the film has the feel of an adult fable.
  • morality: The Soldier's Tale is a morality fable in which the Devil appears in different guises.
  • morning: True Lies The Garden An early morning fable for the post-secular, post-everything generation.

Browse dictionary entries near fable

  1. Fabius
  2. Fabian Society
  3. Fabian
  4. fabaceous
  5. fab
  6. FAA
  7. fa la
  8. fa
  9. F & WS
  10. f.v.
  1. fabled
  2. fabless
  3. fabliau
  4. fabric
  5. fabricate
  6. fabrication
  7. Fabry-Perot laser
  8. fabulist
  9. fabulous
  10. facade