Fiction - Definitions from Dictionary.com

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Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) - Cite This Source - Share This

fic·tion

Audio Help [fik-shuh

n] Pronunciation Key

–noun

1.	the class of literature comprising works of imaginative narration, esp. in prose form.

2.	works of this class, as novels or short stories: detective fiction.

3.	something feigned, invented, or imagined; a made-up story: We've all heard the fiction of her being in delicate health.

4.	the act of feigning, inventing, or imagining.

5.	an imaginary thing or event, postulated for the purposes of argument or explanation.

6.	Law. an allegation that a fact exists that is known not to exist, made by authority of law to bring a case within the operation of a rule of law.

[Origin: 1375–1425; late ME < L fictiōn- (s. of fictiō) a shaping, hence a feigning, fiction, equiv. to fict(us) molded (ptp. of fingere) + -iōn- -ion

]

—Related forms

fic·tion·al, adjective

fic·tion·al·ly, adverb

—Synonyms 3. fable, fantasy. Fiction, fabrication, figment suggest a story that is without basis in reality. Fiction suggests a story invented and fashioned either to entertain or to deceive: clever fiction; pure fiction. Fabrication applies particularly to a false but carefully invented statement or series of statements, in which some truth is sometimes interwoven, the whole usually intended to deceive: fabrications to lure speculators. Figment applies to a tale, idea, or statement often made up to explain, justify, or glorify oneself: His rich uncle was a figment of his imagination.

—Antonyms 3. fact.

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Fiction

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American Heritage Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This

fic·tion Audio Help (fĭk'shən) Pronunciation Key
n.

1. An imaginative creation or a pretense that does not represent actuality but has been invented.
2. The act of inventing such a creation or pretense.
3. A literary work whose content is produced by the imagination and is not necessarily based on fact.
4. The category of literature comprising works of this kind, including novels and short stories.
A lie.
1. A literary work whose content is produced by the imagination and is not necessarily based on fact.
2. The category of literature comprising works of this kind, including novels and short stories.
Law Something untrue that is intentionally represented as true by the narrator.

[Middle English ficcioun, from Old French fiction, from Latin fictiō, fictiōn-, from fictus, past participle of fingere, to form; see dheigh- in Indo-European roots.]

fic'tion·al adj., fic'tion·al'i·ty (-shə-nāl'ĭ-tē) n., fic'tion·al·ly adv.

Word History: To most people "the latest fiction" means the latest novels or stories rather than the most recently invented pretense or latest lie. All three senses of the word fiction point back to its source, Latin fictiō, "the action of shaping, a feigning, that which is feigned." Fictiō in turn was derived from fingere, "to make by shaping, feign, make up or invent a story or excuse." Our first instance of fiction, recorded in a work composed around 1412, was used in the sense "invention of the mind, that which is imaginatively invented." It is not a far step from this meaning to the sense "imaginative literature," first recorded in 1599.

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Online Etymology Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This
fiction

1398, "something invented," from L. fictionem (nom. fictio) "a fashioning or feigning," from fingere "to shape, form, devise, feign," originally "to knead, form out of clay," from PIE *dheigh- (cf. O.E. dag "dough"). As a type of literature, 1599. Fictitious is 1615, from M.L. fictitus, a misspelling of L. ficticius "artificial, counterfeit," from fictus, pp. of fingere.

WordNet - Cite This Source - Share This

fiction
noun
1.	a literary work based on the imagination and not necessarily on fact
2.	a deliberately false or improbable account [syn: fabrication]

Kernerman English Multilingual Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This
fiction [ˈfikʃən] noun

stories etc which tell of imagined, not real, characters and events (see also non-fiction)
Example: I prefer reading fiction to hearing about real events.

Arabic:	قصص خَياليه
Chinese (Simplified):	小说
Chinese (Traditional):	小說
Czech:	beletrie
Danish:	skønlitteratur; fiktion
Dutch:	fictie
Estonian:	ilukirjandus
Finnish:	kaunokirjallisuus
French:	roman(s)
German:	die Dichtung
Greek:	μυθοπλασία, μυθιστόρημα
Hungarian:	regény(irodalom)
Icelandic:	skáldskapur
Indonesian:	fiksi
Italian:	romanzo, narrativa

Japanese:	小説
Korean:	소설, 지어낸 이야기
Latvian:	daiļliteratūra; izdomājums
Lithuanian:	grožinė literatūra
Norwegian:	skjønnlitteratur
Polish:	beletrystyka
Portuguese (Brazil):	ficção
Portuguese (Portugal):	ficção
Romanian:	ficţiune; roman(e)
Russian:	беллетристика
Slovak:	beletria
Slovenian:	leposlovje
Spanish:	ficción
Swedish:	dikt, skönlitteratur, romaner
Turkish:	hayâl ürünü öykü

See also: fictitious

American Heritage New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition - Cite This Source - Share This
fiction

Literature that is a work of the imagination and is not necessarily based on fact. Some examples of modern works of fiction are The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov.

[Chapter:] Conventions of Written English

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This

Fiction

Fab`ri*ca"tion\, n. [L. fabricatio; cf. F. fabrication.]

1. The act of fabricating, framing, or constructing; construction; manufacture; as, the fabrication of a bridge, a church, or a government. --Burke.

2. That which is fabricated; a falsehood; as, the story is doubtless a fabrication.

Syn: See Fiction.

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