Dictionary

fabulate en · VERB · etymology 1

Etymology

From Latin fābulātus, perfect active participle of fābulor (“to tell stories, chat”) (see -ate (verb-forming suffix)), from fābula (“fable”).

Meanings

1. (intransitive) To tell invented stories, often those that involve fantasy, such as fables.
   • It is only this posture that permits him to discharge his function as a chief: to fabulate and to summon up the missing people. 2006, Jérémie Valentin, “Gille Deleuze’s Political Posture”, chapter 12 of Constantin V. Boundas (editor), Deleuze and Philosophy, Edinburgh University Press, page 196
   • The objects remain those of male fantasies, but from the start Maxine associates the ability to fantasize or fabulate with women and with Cantonese: […] 1992, Donald C. Goellnicht, "Tang Ao in America: Male Subject Positions in China Men, Shirley Geok-lin Lim and Amy Ling (editors), Reading the Literatures of Asian America, Temple University Press, page 205
   • Human fears, needs, dreams release the latent propensities of the subliminal soul, and to respond to them the fabulating imagination sets to work. 1990, Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, Tractatus Brevus, Kluwer, page 38:
2. (archaic, transitive) To relate as or in the manner of a fable.
   • Anyone who considers it a pleasure to compose short stories or to fabulate a tale, must remain silent and say nothing of her beauty. 1990, Marianne Kalinke, Bridal-quest Romance in Medieval Iceland, page 74:
3. (intransitive, obsolete) To tell fables, to narrate with fables.
   • The Fort is ſo barricadoed, that it is hard ſcaling it : the refractary Rebell ſo guarded with Euill and Poyſon, ſo warded with unruly and deadly ; as if it were with Gyants in an Inchanted Towre, as they fabulate ; so no man can tame it. 1630, Thomas Adams, “The Taming of the Tongve”, in The Workes of Tho: Adams, page 143:

Forms

Deriveds

fabulation · fabulator

Translations (1)

es fabular (Translations)

fabulate en · NOUN · etymology 2

Etymology

Coined around 1934 by folklorist Carl von Sydow to contrast with memorate, see -ate (noun-forming suffix).

Meanings

1. (countable, uncountable) A folk story that is not entirely believable.
   • It is a rule, though, that each fabulate, as well as every other narrative that requires credence or pretense or at least the possibility of belief as its ingredient, is based on either a truly existing or an assumed memorate[…] or something similar. 1974, Linda Dégh, Andrew Vázsonyi, “The memorate and the proto-memorate”, in The Journal of American Folklore, volume 87, →DOI, page 232:
2. (countable, specifically, uncountable) A folk story that is told for entertainment, and not intended to be taken as true.
   • To jocular fabulates (Sherzfabulate) I place inter alia some of the “Tales of the Stupid Ogre” in Aarne’s Type Register. 1948, Carl von Sydow, Selected Papers on Folklore, page 87:

Forms

Relateds

memorate