Aesopian

American  

[ee-soh-pee-uhn, ee-sop-ee-] / iˈsoʊ pi ən, iˈsɒp i- /

Also Aesopic

adjective

1. of, relating to, or characteristic of Aesop or his fables.

   a story that points an Aesopian moral.

2. conveying meaning by hint, euphemism, innuendo, or the like.

   In the candidate's Aesopian language, “soft on Communism” was to be interpreted as “Communist sympathizer.”

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Etymology

Origin of Aesopian

1870–75; < Late Latin Aesōpi ( us ) + -an

Example Sentences

If Brasher sometimes tends to moralize when he writes about birds, it isn’t Aesopian.

From Washington Post • Apr. 29, 2023

Beast epics used some of the Aesopian material, but they were much longer and more novelistic.

From The New Yorker • Apr. 27, 2015

Terry has noticed, as have others, the Aesopian motifs that occur, and includes slender, playful versions, sometimes modernised, of Aesop's fables himself.

From The Guardian • May 28, 2013

In this spirited essay Naturalist Lorenz describes the experience of these species in a natural history of aggression presented as a series of scientifically verified but shrewdly Aesopian fables for our time.

From Time Magazine Archive

Thus, after an eclipse of many centuries, Babrias shines out as the earliest, and most reliable collector of veritable Aesopian Fables.

From Aesop's Fables Translated by George Fyler Townsend by Townsend, George Fyler