fabliau
Americannoun
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fabliaux
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of fabliau
1795–1805; < French; Old North French form of Old French fablel, fableau, equivalent to fable fable + -el diminutive suffix; see -elle
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:
The fabliau takes every phase of life for its subject; the folk-song acquires elegance and does not lose raciness and truth.
From A Short History of French Literature by George Saintsbury
In this respect the moderns have never returned to ancient simplicity; at least the fabliau, La Bataille des Vins, introduces us to 47 kinds of French wine in the 13th century.
From Principles of Political Economy, Vol. II by Wilhelm Roscher
There is, however, in the fabliau proper not so very much of direct satire, this being indeed excluded by the definition given above, and by the thoroughly artistic spirit in which that definition is observed.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 11, Slice 2 "French Literature" to "Frost, William" by Various
And it is important to repeat that it connects itself in the general literary survey both with fabliau and with allegory.
From The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) by George Saintsbury
A fabliau always related an event; it was usually brief, containing not more than 400 lines; it was neither sentimental, religious nor supernatural, but comic and gay.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 10, Slice 1 "Evangelical Church Conference" to "Fairbairn, Sir William" by Various
Thus old tales like The Thousand and One Nights, the fabliaux, The Canterbury Tales, the Grimms' folk stories have a magic rarely found in latter ages.
From Time Magazine Archive
Did I really want to sit there listening to Mr. Grovenor explain for the twentieth time what fabliaux were?
From "The Boy in the Black Suit" by Jason Reynolds
MM. de Montaiglon and Raynaud, who have closely investigated this class of literature, consider that about 150 fabliaux have come down to us more or less intact; a vast number have doubtless disappeared.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 10, Slice 1 "Evangelical Church Conference" to "Fairbairn, Sir William" by Various
They are simply the old themes of the fabliaux treated in the old way.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 11, Slice 2 "French Literature" to "Frost, William" by Various
Very little of it is represented in the English of the following centuries; yet what there is in English corresponding to the French fabliaux and to Reynard the Fox is thoroughly well done.
From Medieval English Literature Home University of Modern Knowledge #43 by W. P. (William Paton) Ker
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.
