fable
Americannoun
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fables
plural
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a short tale to teach a moral lesson, often with animals or inanimate objects as characters; apologue: Aesop's fables.
the fable of the tortoise and the hare;
Aesop's fables.
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a story not founded on fact.
This biography is largely a self-laudatory fable.
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a story about supernatural or extraordinary persons or incidents; legend.
the fables of gods and heroes.
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legends or myths collectively.
the heroes of Greek fable.
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an untruth; falsehood.
This boast of a cure is a medical fable.
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the plot of an epic, a dramatic poem, or a play.
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idle talk.
old wives' fables.
verb (used without object)
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to tell or write fables.
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to speak falsely; lie.
to fable about one's past.
verb (used with object)
noun
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a short moral story, esp one with animals as characters
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a false, fictitious, or improbable account; fiction or lie
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a story or legend about supernatural or mythical characters or events
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legends or myths collectively
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archaic the plot of a play or of an epic or dramatic poem
verb
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to relate or tell (fables)
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(intr) to speak untruthfully; tell lies
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(tr) to talk about or describe in the manner of a fable
ghosts are fabled to appear at midnight
Synonym Usage
See legend.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of fable
First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English fable, fabel, fabul, from Anglo-French, Old French, from Latin fābula “a story, tale,” equivalent to fā(rī) “to speak” + -bula suffix of instrument
Explanation
A fable is a moral tale that often features animal characters. “The Tortoise and the Hare” is a well-known fable whose moral is "Slow and steady wins the race." We often associate fables with the master of them all, Aesop. Among the most famous fables attributed to this storyteller of ancient Greece are "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" and "The Fox and the Grapes." But like its cousins tale, myth, and legend, the word fable is also used to describe a deliberate fabrication or fiction. In other words, it can be a polite way to describe a lie.
Vocabulary lists containing fable
Ancient Greece - Introductory
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Literary Genres - Introductory
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Reading: Literature - Literary Genres - Introductory
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
At some point in childhood, through one classic fable or another, most of us absorb the lesson that looks can be deceiving.
From Slate ● Jul. 8, 2026
What survives in the ashes of McCarthy’s fable is the elemental love that bonds a parent and a child.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 19, 2026
France President Emmanuel Macron paid tribute to "a great artist who transformed an Iranian childhood into a universal fable".
From BBC ● Jun. 4, 2026
It doesn’t lose its way, yet doesn’t feel entirely confined to one place — a critical component that allows “Is God Is” to play like a modern biblical fable.
From Salon ● May 19, 2026
At times of famine, a single blepharisma will begin eating its neighbors; it then enlarges to an immense size and turns into a cannibalistic giant, straight out of any Norse fable.
From "The Lives of a Cell" by Lewis Thomas
Likewise, Schoenbrun specializes in zeitgeisty fables about 21st century isolation.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 6, 2026
It’s about good versus evil, gods versus monsters — the fables we’ve been telling since the beginning of time, and why they will be with us until the end.
From Salon ● May 19, 2026
That Niall finds Ruben so alluring is natural to Gadd, who believes the notion of a valiant male figure has been bred into everyone via fables and fairy tales.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 23, 2026
“The Wayfinder” combines religious myths, ecological fables and nationalist origin stories into a thrilling hero’s quest.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 12, 2025
The correct response to this is to be found in one of Aesop’s fables, ‘The Braggart’.
From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton
In episode 150 of his acclaimed podcast “A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs,” Andrew Hickey offers a recap/analysis of the fabled 1967 television series “The Prisoner.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 30, 2026
They’re the fabled duo who first wrapped the arches of this same bridge in straw-colored fabric in 1985.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 20, 2026
Shaun Edwards' departure from France's national team is being negotiated, with the fabled defence coach set to be without a role a year out from the Rugby World Cup.
From BBC ● Jun. 11, 2026
Soaring ticket prices and extra security for US President Donald Trump do not alter the electric energy of fabled Madison Square Garden as it hosts games three and four of the NBA Finals.
From Barron's ● Jun. 8, 2026
The proudest city in all the world was gone in an instant, its fabled empire vanished in a day, the Lands of the Long Summer scorched and drowned and blighted.
From "A Dance with Dragons" by George R. R. Martin
If I marry Again sounds like one of those pulpy domestic morals with which the jaded directors are so fond of fabling.
From Time Magazine Archive
Ah! why do fabling poets tell That thy fleet wings outstrip the wind?
From Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) by J. G. (John Gibson) Lockhart
With thy fabling and thy reasoning, i-wis, I am beguiled; but I have known thee ere this: Art not Celestine, that dwelleth by the river side?
From A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 1 by William Carew Hazlitt
Tell, I pray thee, whence the gloomy spots Upon this body, which below on earth Give rise to talk of Cain in fabling quaint?”
From Curious Myths of the Middle Ages by S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
A wise old man—I believe he was a bishop—once said he knew "that outside the real world is a world of fine fabling."
From The Boss of Little Arcady by Harry Leon Wilson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
