fabulate
fabulate verb: to tell invented stories, often those that involve fantasy, such as fables.
Verb
fabulate (third-person singular simple present fabulates, present participle fabulating, simple past and past participle fabulated)
- To tell invented stories, often those that involve fantasy, such as fables.
- 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
- 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...
- 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
- 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
Noun
fabulate (countable and uncountable, plural fabulates)
- 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
- 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 of fabulate
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | fabulates |
| present participle | fabulating |
| past participle | fabulated |
| past | fabulated |
| Noun | |
| plural | fabulates |
Origin of fabulate
From Latin fābulātus, perfect active participle of fābulor (“to tell stories, chat”) (see -ate (verb-forming suffix)), from fābula (“fable”).
Coined around 1934 by folklorist Carl von Sydow to contrast with memorate, see -ate (noun-forming suffix).
Words formed from fabulate
Questions about fabulate
- What does fabulate mean?
- Fabulate means to tell invented stories, often those that involve fantasy, such as fables.
- What part of speech is fabulate?
- Fabulate can be a verb or a noun.
- What is the past tense of fabulate?
- The past tense of fabulate is fabulated.
Words near fabulate in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: fabulate (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “fabulate.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/fabulate. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.