fabulate
Americanverb (used without object)
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to tell invented stories; create fables or stories filled with fantasy.
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to relate an event as a fable.
Other Word Forms
Explanation
To fabulate is to tell a tall tale — in other words, to lie. You might be tempted to fabulate a story about why you don't have your homework, but you should probably just tell the truth. Fabulate shares a Latin root, fabula, "story or tale," with fable. Strictly speaking, when someone writes or tells fables along the lines of The Tortoise and the Hare, they fabulate. More often, it's a fancy way to describe what a liar does: "He fabulated his entire resume, claiming he went to Harvard and served in the Peace Corps before he turned 21!"
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:
Later stages are at times accompanied by inclination to fabulate, loss of judgment, disorientation, narrowing of the external interests, episodes of confusion and hallucinatory delirium.
From Arteriosclerosis and Hypertension: with Chapters on Blood Pressure, 3rd Edition. by Louis Marshall Warfield
People who commit these falsehoods may be people of talent, and, as Goethe says of himself, may have ``desire to fabulate.''
From Criminal Psychology; a manual for judges, practitioners, and students by Hans Gustav Adolf Gross
Certainly, Henry fabulated and shaped various details and incidents.
From The New Yorker ● Jan. 18, 2016
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.
