Search the Dictionary

That which is invented; an original contrivance or construction; a device; as, this fable was the invention of Esop; that falsehood was her own invention. We entered by the drawbridge, which has an invention to let one fall if not premonished. Evelyn.

he was revealed to the Jews as their covenant God or Sovereign of the theocracy; the "ineffable name" of the Supreme Being, which was not pronounced by the Jews.

A genius or demon; one of the fabled genii, good and evil spirits, supposed to be the children of fire, and to have the power of assuming various forms. [Written also jin, djinnee, etc.]

The fabled offspring of a bull and a mare. Locke.

Two cats fabled, in an Irish story, to have fought till nothing was left but their tails. It is probably a parable of a local contest between Kilkenny and Irishtown, which impoverished both towns.

erful story coming down from the past, but not verifiable by historical record; a myth; a fable. And in this legend all that glorious deed. Read, whilst you arm you. Fairfax.

A fiction; a fable; an untruth. Dryden.

basilisk. -- Lion's share, all, or nearly all; the best or largest part; -- from Æsop's fable of the lion hunting in company with certain smaller beasts, and appropriating to himself all the prey.

Sicily, Portugal, and Spain (Zizyphus Lotus), the fruit of which is mildly sweet. It was fabled by the ancients to make strangers who ate of it forget their native country, or lose all desire to return to it.

A human being fabled to have been changed into a wolf; a werewolf.

Partaking of the character of miracle, or superna The marvelous fable includes whatever is supernatural, and especially the machines of the gods. Pope. The marvelous, that which exceeds natural power, or is preternatural; that which is wonderful; -- opposed to the probable.

Having the qualities fabled to belong to the god Mercury; swift; active; sprightly; fickle; volatile; changeable; as, a mercurial youth; a mercurial temperament. A mercurial man Who fluttered over all things like a fan. Byron.

A fabled marine creature, typically represented as having the upper part like that of a woman, and the lower like a fish; a sea nymph, sea woman, or woman fish.

A king and lawgiver of Crete, fabled to be the son of Jupiter and Europa. After death he was made a judge in the Lower Regions.

A fabled monster, half man and half bull, confined in the labyrinth constructed by Dædalus in Crete.

The inner meaning or significance of a fable, a narrative, an occurrence, an experience, etc.; the practical lesson which anything is designed or fitted to teach; the doctrine meant to be inculcated by a fiction; a maxim. Thus may we gather honey from the weed, And make a moral of the devil himself. Shak. To point a mo…

To apply to a moral purpose; to explain in a moral sense; to draw a moral from. This fable is moralized in a common proverb. L'Estrange. Did he not moralize this spectacle Shak.

god, a hero, the origin of a race, etc.; a wonder story of prehistoric origin; a popular fable which is, or has been, received as historical.

A composer of fables.

A narration of mere fable.