fabulate

English

Etymology 1

From Latin fābulātus, perfect passive participle of fābulor (“tell stories, chat”), from fābula (“fable”).

Verb

fabulate (third-person singular simple present fabulates, present participle fabulating, simple past and past participle fabulated)

1. (intransitive) To tell invented stories, often those that involve fantasy, such as fables.
   • 1990, Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, Tractatus Brevus, Kluwer, page 38:

     Human fears, needs, dreams release the latent propensities of the subliminal soul, and to respond to them the fabulating imagination sets to work.

   • 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, →ISBN, page 205:

     The objects remain those of male fantasies, but from the start Maxine associates the ability to fantasize or fabulate with women and with Cantonese:

   • 2006, Jérémie Valentin, “Gille Deleuze’s Political Posture”, chapter 12 of Constantin V. Boundas (editor), Deleuze and Philosophy, Edinburgh University Press, →ISBN, page 196:

     It is only this posture that permits him to discharge his function as a chief: to fabulate and to summon up the missing people.

2. (transitive, archaic) To relate as or in the manner of a fable.
   • 1990, Marianne Kalinke, Bridal-quest Romance in Medieval Iceland, page 74:

     Anyone who considers it a pleasure to compose short stories or to fabulate a tale, must remain silent and say nothing of her beauty.

3. (intransitive, obsolete) To tell fables, to narrate with fables.
   • 1630, Thomas Adams, “The Taming of the Tongve”, in The Workes of Tho: Adams‎, page 143:

     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.

Derived terms

• fabulation
• fabulator

Etymology 2

Coined around 1934 by folklorist Carl von Sydow to contrast with memorate.

Noun

fabulate (countable and uncountable, plural fabulates)

1. A folk story that is not entirely believable.
   • 1974, Linda Dégh, Andrew Vázsonyi, “The memorate and the proto-memorate”, in The Journal of American Folklore, volume 87, →DOI, page 232:

     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.

2. (specifically) A folk story that is told for entertainment, and not intended to be taken as true.
   • 1948, Carl von Sydow, Selected Papers on Folklore, page 87:

     To jocular fabulates (Sherzfabulate) I place inter alia some of the “Tales of the Stupid Ogre” in Aarne’s Type Register.

See also

• memorate

References

Latin

Participle

fābulāte

1. vocative masculine singular of fābulātus

Spanish

Verb

fabulate

1. second-person singular voseo imperative of fabular combined with te