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FABLE
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I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
A story about mythical or supernatural beings or events
Synonyms:
fable; legend
Classified under:
Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents
Hypernyms ("fable" is a kind of...):
story (a piece of fiction that narrates a chain of related events)
Domain member category:
grail; Holy Grail; Sangraal ((legend) chalice used by Christ at the Last Supper)
King Arthur's Round Table; Round Table ((legend) the circular table for King Arthur and his knights)
hagiology (literature narrating the lives (and legends) of the saints)
Midas ((Greek legend) the greedy king of Phrygia who Dionysus gave the power to turn everything he touched into gold)
Sisyphus ((Greek legend) a king in ancient Greece who offended Zeus and whose punishment was to roll a huge boulder to the top of a steep hill; each time the boulder neared the top it rolled back down and Sisyphus was forced to start again)
Tristan; Tristram ((Middle Ages) the nephew of the king of Cornwall who (according to legend) fell in love with his uncle's bride (Iseult) after they mistakenly drank a love potion that left them eternally in love with each other)
Iseult; Isolde ((Middle Ages) the bride of the king of Cornwall who (according to legend) fell in love with the king's nephew (Tristan) after they mistakenly drank a love potion that left them eternally in love with each other)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "fable"):
Arthurian legend (the legend of King Arthur and his court at Camelot)
Derivation:
fabulist (a person who tells or invents fables)
fabulous (based on or told of in traditional stories; lacking factual basis or historical validity)
Sense 2
Meaning:
A short moral story (often with animal characters)
Synonyms:
allegory; apologue; fable; parable
Classified under:
Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents
Hypernyms ("fable" is a kind of...):
story (a piece of fiction that narrates a chain of related events)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "fable"):
Aesop's fables (a collection of fables believed to have been written by the Greek storyteller Aesop)
Instance hyponyms:
Pilgrim's Progress (an allegory written by John Bunyan in 1678)
Derivation:
fabulist (a person who tells or invents fables)
fabulous (based on or told of in traditional stories; lacking factual basis or historical validity)
Sense 3
Meaning:
A deliberately false or improbable account
Synonyms:
fable; fabrication; fiction
Classified under:
Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents
Hypernyms ("fable" is a kind of...):
falsehood; falsity; untruth (a false statement)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "fable"):
canard (a deliberately misleading fabrication)
Derivation:
fabulist (a person who tells or invents fables)
fabulous (barely credible)
Context examples:
In the hope of pleasing everyone, she took everyone's advice, and like the old man and his donkey in the fable suited nobody.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
Her friends repeated the pleasing phrase enthusiastically, and for several minutes she stood, like a jackdaw in the fable, enjoying her borrowed plumes, while the rest chattered like a party of magpies.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
