fable
Americannoun
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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
France President Emmanuel Macron paid tribute to "a great artist who transformed an Iranian childhood into a universal fable".
From BBC ● Jun. 4, 2026
Wygodny has written original music to subtly accompany Booth’s fable, lending the emotional subtext at points a penumbra of cello.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 29, 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
Theon was about to tell him what he ought to do with his wet nurse's fable when Maester Luwin spoke up.
From "A Clash of Kings" by George R.R. Martin
Those movies proved there is a market for large-scale live-action fables employing practical and realistic special effects, along with massive sets built on location.
From Salon ● Jun. 24, 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
Interlaced with the prosaic reflections are a series of fables involving inhabitants from the present and past.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 28, 2025
"The great thing about these movies is that they are like fables," Byron Howard, one of the two directors, told AFP in Los Angeles.
From Barron's ● Nov. 25, 2025
It wasn’t the first time that false prophets announced to us: peace-in-the-world, the-Red-Cross-negotiating-our-liberation, or other fables .
From "Night" by Elie Wiesel
A frightening encounter with a fabled Sea Hag in the third episode turns dyed-in-the-wool skeptic Tom into a believer, allowing Rhys to exercise his pipes and impressive pitch.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 8, 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 fabled studio engineer George Massenburg details how certain recordings came to be.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 4, 2026
Accompanied by HMS Terror, it was searching for the fabled Northwest Passage.
From BBC ● May 26, 2026
He was thinking of the fabled Cracks of Doom and the terror of the Fiery Mountain.
From "The Fellowship of the Ring" by J.R.R. Tolkien
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
And yet, fair bow, no fabling dreams, But words of the Most High, Have told why first thy robe of beams Was woven in the sky.
From Bible Stories and Religious Classics by Wells, Philip P.
The Italian Favellio, parlerie, babil, caquet—Alberti’s “Grand Dictionnaire”—does not wholly convey the idea of our modern Humbug, which combines fabling and caquet.
From Amenities of Literature Consisting of Sketches and Characters of English Literature by Disraeli, Isaac
But of that cathedral nothing is now left but a heap of fragments, and a stone, on which, fabling tradition says, Henry II. was reconciled to the Church after the murder of Becket.
From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 by Various
It confutes, according to the knight's own ideas: it alleges a few scattered facts in favour of astrological predictions, which may be picked up in that immensity of fabling which disgraces history.
From Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 by Disraeli, Isaac
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.
