[fey-buh
l] 
noun, verb, -bled, -bling.| 1. | a short tale to teach a moral lesson, often with animals or inanimate objects as characters; apologue: the fable of the tortoise and the hare; Aesop's fables. |
| 2. | a story not founded on fact: This biography is largely a self-laudatory fable. |
| 3. | a story about supernatural or extraordinary persons or incidents; legend: the fables of gods and heroes. |
| 4. | legends or myths collectively: the heroes of Greek fable. |
| 5. | an untruth; falsehood: This boast of a cure is a medical fable. |
| 6. | the plot of an epic, a dramatic poem, or a play. |
| 7. | idle talk: old wives' fables. |
| 8. | to tell or write fables. |
| 9. | to speak falsely; lie: to fable about one's past. |
| 10. | to describe as if actually so; talk about as if true: She is fabled to be the natural daughter of a king. |
| fa·ble (fā'bəl) n.
v. tr. To recount as if true. v. intr. Archaic To compose fables. [Middle English, from Old French, from Latin fābula, from fārī, to speak; see bhā-2 in Indo-European roots.] fa'bler n. |
Fable
applied in the New Testament to the traditions and speculations, "cunningly devised fables", of the Jews on religious questions (1 Tim. 1:4; 4:7; 2 Tim. 4:4; Titus 1:14; 2 Pet. 1:16). In such passages the word means anything false and unreal. But the word is used as almost equivalent to parable. Thus we have (1) the fable of Jotham, in which the trees are spoken of as choosing a king (Judg. 9:8-15); and (2) that of the cedars of Lebanon and the thistle as Jehoash's answer to Amaziah (2 Kings 14:9).
fable
narrative form, usually featuring animals that behave and speak as human beings, told in order to highlight human follies and weaknesses. A moral-or lesson for behaviour-is woven into the story and often explicitly formulated at the end. (See also beast fable.)
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