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Fable vs Fantasy - What's the difference?

fable | fantasy |

As nouns the difference between fable and fantasy

is that fable is a fictitious narrative intended to enforce some useful truth or precept, usually with animals, birds etc as characters; an apologue. Prototypically, Aesop's Fables while fantasy is that which comes from one's imagination.

As verbs the difference between fable and fantasy

is that fable is to compose fables; hence, to write or speak fiction ; to write or utter what is not true while fantasy is to fantasize (about).

fable

English

(wikipedia fable)

Noun

(en noun)
  • A fictitious narrative intended to enforce some useful truth or precept, usually with animals, birds etc as characters; an apologue. Prototypically, .
  • Any story told to excite wonder; common talk; the theme of talk.
  • * 4:7,
    • Old wives' fables .
  • * ,
    • We grew / The fable of the city where we dwelt.
  • Fiction; untruth; falsehood.
  • * ,
    • It would look like a fable to report that this gentleman gives away a great fortune by secret methods.
  • The plot, story, or connected series of events forming the subject of an epic or dramatic poem.
  • * Dryden
    • The moral is the first business of the poet; this being formed, he contrives such a design or fable as may be most suitable to the moral.

    Synonyms

    * (fiction to enforce a useful precept) morality play * (story to excite wonder) legend * (falsehood)

    Verb

    (fabl)
  • (archaic) To compose fables; hence, to write or speak fiction ; to write or utter what is not true.
  • * Shakespeare, 1 Henry VI , IV-ii:
    • He Fables not.
  • * :
    • Vain now the tales which fabling poets tell.
  • * :
    • He fables , yet speaks truth.
  • (archaic) To feign; to invent; to devise, and speak of, as true or real; to tell of falsely.
  • * :
    • The hell thou fablest .

    References

    * (Webster 1913) ----

    fantasy

    English

    (wikipedia fantasy)

    Alternative forms

    * phantasie * phantasy (chiefly dated)

    Noun

    (fantasies)
  • That which comes from one's imagination.
  • * Shakespeare
    • Is not this something more than fantasy ?
  • * Milton
    • A thousand fantasies begin to throng into my memory.
  • (literature) The literary genre generally dealing with themes of magic and fictive medieval technology.
  • A fantastical design.
  • * Hawthorne
    • Embroidered with fantasies and flourishes of gold thread.
  • (slang) The drug gamma-hydroxybutyric acid.

    • Related terms

    * fantasize

    Derived terms

    * high fantasy * low fantasy

    Verb

  • (literary, psychoanalysis) To fantasize (about).
  • * 2013 , Mark J. Blechner, Hope and Mortality: Psychodynamic Approaches to AIDS and HIV
    • Perhaps I would be able to help him recapture the well-being and emotional closeness he fantasied his brother had experienced with his parents prior to his birth.
  • (obsolete) To have a fancy for; to be pleased with; to like.
    • (Cavendish)
  • * Robynson (More's Utopia)
    • Which he doth most fantasy .

    See also

    * fancy ----