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enforce some useful truth or precept; an apologue. See the Note under Apologue. Jotham's fable of the trees is the oldest extant. Addison .

A writer of fables; a fabulist; a dealer in untruths or falsehoods. Br. Hall.

kindly and conversing with them in a free and friendly manner; courteous; sociable. An affable and courteous gentleman. Shak. His manners polite and affable. Macaulay.

Affability.

Capable of being uttered or explained; utterable. Barrow.

Not affable; reserved in social intercourse.

capable of being expresses in words; unspeakable; unutterable; indescribable; as, the ineffable joys of heaven. Contentment with our lot . . . will diffuse ineffable contenBeattie.

The quality or state of being ineffable or unutterable; unspeakableness.

Mischievous. [R.] Lydgate.

That which is part fable and part truth; a mixture of truth and fable. De Quincey.

Approachable; affable. [R.] Hawthorne.

Easy to be acquainted with; affable. [Obs.] Rom. of R.

containing the pheasaut's eye (Adonis autumnalis); -- named from Adonis, whose blood was fabled to have stained the flower.

The quality of being affable; readiness to converse; courteousness in receiving others and in conversation; complaisant behavior. Affability is of a wonderful efficacy or power in procuring love. Elyot

In an affable manner; courteously.

The fabled "universal solvent" of the alchemists; a menstruum capable of dissolving all bodies. -- Al`ka*hes"tic, a.

The fabled food of the gods (as nectar was their drink), which conferred immortality upon those who partook of it.

A fabled serpent with a head at each end, moving either way. Milton.

Savior himself . . . did not choose an anchorite's or a monastic life, but a social and affable way of conversing with mortals. Boyle.

A story or relation of fictitious events, intended to convey some moral truth; a moral fable.