fabliau

American  

[fab-lee-oh, fa-blee-oh] / ˈfæb liˌoʊ, fa bliˈoʊ /

noun

plural

fabliaux

1. a short metrical tale, usually ribald and humorous, popular in medieval France.

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fabliau British  

/ fɑblijo, ˈfæblɪˌəʊ /

noun

1. a comic usually ribald verse tale, of a kind popular in France in the 12th and 13th centuries

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Etymology

Origin of fabliau

1795–1805; < French; Old North French form of Old French fablel, fableau, equivalent to fable fable + -el diminutive suffix; -elle

Example Sentences

It aims at mirth and laughter for their own sakes, without any purpose of edification; it had, like the fabliau, the merit of brevity, and not infrequently the fault of unabashed grossness.

From A History of French Literature Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. by Gosse, Edmund

Pitrè, No. 165, "Fra Ghiniparu," is a variation of the above theme, and finds its counterpart in the fabliau of Le Sacristain de Cluni: see Gesammtabenteuer, ut sup.

From Italian Popular Tales by Crane, Thomas Frederick

The prose-tale and the farce are the direct outcomes of the fabliau, and the prose-tale and the farce once given, the novel and the comedy inevitably follow.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 11, Slice 2 "French Literature" to "Frost, William" by Various

The genealogy of the word is fabula, fabella, fabel, fable, fablel, fableau, fabliau.

From A Short History of French Literature by Saintsbury, George

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 Saintsbury, George