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Fable vs Tail - What's the difference?

fable | tail |

As nouns the difference between fable and tail

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, while tail is .

As a verb fable

is (archaic) to compose fables; hence, to write or speak fiction ; to write or utter what is not true.

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) ----

    tail

    English

    Etymology 1

    From (etyl) (m), (m), (m), from (etyl) . In some senses, apparently by a generalization of the usual opposition between head'' and ''tail .

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (anatomy) The caudal appendage of an animal that is attached to its posterior and near the anus.
  • Most primates have a tail and fangs.
  • The tail-end of an object, e.g. the rear of an aircraft's fuselage, containing the tailfin.
  • An object or part of an object resembling a tail in shape, such as the thongs on a cat-o'-nine-tails.
  • * (rfdate), Harvey:
  • Doretus writes a great praise of the distilled waters of those tails that hang on willow trees.
  • The rear structure of an aircraft, the empennage.
  • Specifically, the visible stream of dust and gases blown from a comet by the solar wind.
  • The latter part of a time period or event, or (collectively) persons or objects represented in this part.
  • (statistics) The part of a distribution most distant from the mode; as , a long tail.
  • One who surreptitiously follows another.
  • (cricket) The last four or five batsmen in the batting order, usually specialist bowlers.
  • (typography) The lower loop of the letters in the Roman alphabet, as in g'', ''q'' or ''y .
  • (chiefly, in the plural) The side of a coin not bearing the head; normally the side on which the monetary value of the coin is indicated; the reverse.
  • (mathematics) All the last terms of a sequence, from some term on.
  • A sequence (a_n) is said to be ''frequently 0'' if every tail of the sequence contains 0.
  • The buttocks or backside.
  • * 1499 , (John Skelton), The Bowge of Courte :
  • By Goddis sydes, syns I her thyder broughte, / She hath gote me more money with her tayle / Than hath some shyppe that into Bordews sayle.
  • *, I.49:
  • They were wont to wipe their tailes .
  • (slang) The male member of a person or animal.
  • After the burly macho nudists' polar bear dip, their tails''' were spectacularly shrunk, so they looked like an immature kid's innocent '''tail .
  • (slang, uncountable) Sexual intercourse.
  • I'm gonna get me some tail tonight.
  • (kayaking) The stern; the back of the kayak.
  • The back, last, lower, or inferior part of anything.
  • * Bible, Deuteronomy xxviii. 13:
  • The Lord will make thee the head, and not the tail .
  • A train or company of attendants; a retinue.
  • * (rfdate), Walter Scott:
  • "Ah," said he, "if you saw but the chief with his tail on."
  • (anatomy) The distal tendon of a muscle.
  • A downy or feathery appendage of certain achens, formed of the permanent elongated style.
  • (surgery) A portion of an incision, at its beginning or end, which does not go through the whole thickness of the skin, and is more painful than a complete incision; called also tailing.
  • One of the strips at the end of a bandage formed by splitting the bandage one or more times.
  • (nautical) A rope spliced to the strap of a block, by which it may be lashed to anything.
  • (music) The part of a note which runs perpendicularly upward or downward from the head; the stem.
  • (mining) A tailing.
  • (architecture) The bottom or lower portion of a member or part such as a slate or tile.
  • Synonyms

    * ass, poontang, poon, tang, pussy, punani

    Derived terms

    * cat-o'-nine-tails * chase one's tail * coattail * cocktail * have the world by the tail * rattail * shirttail * tailback * tailcoat * tail covert * tail-end * tail feather * tail fin * tailgate * tail lamp * tail light * tail-off * tailpiece * tailpipe * tailplane * tail-race * tail-skid * tailspin * tailstock * tailwheel * tailwind * turn tail * wagtail * whitetail * yellowtail

    See also

    * caudal

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To follow and observe surreptitiously.
  • Tail that car!
  • (architecture) To hold by the end; said of a timber when it rests upon a wall or other support; with in'' or ''into
  • (nautical) To swing with the stern in a certain direction; said of a vessel at anchor.
  • This vessel tails downstream.
  • To follow or hang to, like a tail; to be attached closely to, as that which can not be evaded.
  • * Fuller
  • Nevertheless his bond of two thousand pounds, wherewith he was tailed , continued uncancelled.
  • To pull or draw by the tail.
  • (Hudibras)

    Etymology 2

    From (etyl), probably from a shortened form of entail .

    Adjective

  • (legal) Limited; abridged; reduced; curtailed.
  • estate tail

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (legal) Limitation of inheritance to certain heirs.
  • tail male — limitation to male heirs
    in tail — subject to such a limitation

    Anagrams

    * ----