different between fable vs plot

English

Etymology

From Middle English, borrowed from Old French fable, from Latin f?bula, from f?r? (“to speak, say”) + -bula (“instrumental suffix”). See ban, and compare fabulous, fame. Doublet of fabula.

Pronunciation

• enPR: f??b?l, IPA^(key): /?fe?b?l/
• Rhymes: -e?b?l
• Hyphenation: fa?ble

Noun

fable (plural fables)

1. A fictitious narrative intended to enforce some useful truth or precept, usually with animals, etc. as characters; an apologue. Prototypically, Aesop's Fables.

   Synonym: morality play

2. Any story told to excite wonder; common talk; the theme of talk.

   • Old wives' fables.

   Synonym: legend

3. Fiction; untruth; falsehood.
4. The plot, story, or connected series of events forming the subject of an epic or dramatic poem.

Derived terms

• personal fable
• fabulist

Translations

Verb

fable (third-person singular simple present fables, present participle fabling, simple past and past participle fabled)

1. (intransitive, archaic) To compose fables; hence, to write or speak fiction; to write or utter what is not true.
   • 1591, William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 1, Act IV, Scene 2,^[1]

     He fables not; I hear the enemy:

     Out, some light horsemen, and peruse their wings.

   • 1706, Matthew Prior, “An Ode, Humbly Inscribed to the Queen,” stanza 17, in Samuel Johnson (editor), The Works of the English Poets, London, 1779, Volume 30, p. 254,^[2]

     Vain now the tales which fabling poets tell,

     That wavering Conquest still desires to rove!

     In Marlborough’s camp the goddess knows to dwell:

     Long as the hero’s life remains her love.

   • 1852, Matthew Arnold, Empedocles on Etna, Act II, in Empedocles on Etna and Other Poems, London: B. Fellowes, p. 50,^[3]

     He fables, yet speaks truth.

2. (transitive, archaic) To make up; to devise, and speak of, as true or real; to tell of falsely; to recount in the form of a fable.
   • 1674, John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book VI, lines 288-292,^[4]

     […] err not, that so shall end

     The strife which thou callest evil, but we style

     The strife of glory; which we mean to win,

     Or turn this Heaven itself into the Hell

     Thou fablest […]

   • 1691, Arthur Gorges (translator), The Wisdom of the Ancients by Francis Bacon (1609), London, “Cassandra, or, Divination,” ^[5]

     The Poets Fable, That Apollo being enamoured of Cassandra, was by her many shifts and cunning slights still deluded in his Desire […]

   • 1922, James Joyce, Ulysses, Chapter II,^[6]

     Fabled by the daughters of memory. And yet it was in some way if not as memory fabled it. A phrase, then, of impatience, thud of Blake’s wings of excess. […]

   Synonyms: make up, invent, feign, devise

Derived terms

• fabler

Translations

Further reading

• fable in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

Anagrams

• befal

French

Etymology

From Old French fable, borrowed from Latin fabula.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /fabl/

Noun

fable f (plural fables)

1. fable, story

Synonyms

• conte
• histoire

Related terms

• affabulation

Further reading

• “fable” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Norwegian Bokmål

Etymology

From the noun fabel, ultimately from Latin fabula, from f?(r?) (“to speak, say”) + -bula (“instrumental suffix”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /f??bl?/

Verb

fable (imperative fabl or fable, present tense fabler, passive fables, simple past and past participle fabla or fablet)

1. to fantasize, dream

   fable om suksess

   dream about success

Derived terms

• fabel

References

• “fable” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

Norwegian Nynorsk

Etymology

From the noun fabel, ultimately from Latin fabula, from f?(r?) (“to speak, say”) + -bula (“instrumental suffix”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /f??bl?/

Verb

fable (imperative fabl, present tense fablar, simple past and past participle fabla)

1. to fantasize, dream

   fable om suksess

   dream about success

2. to make up (something)

Derived terms

• fabel

References

• “fable” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

Old French

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin fabula.

Noun

fable f (oblique plural fables, nominative singular fable, nominative plural fables)

1. fable, story

Synonyms

• conte
• estoire

Descendants

• ? Dutch: fabel
• ? English: fable
• French: fable

Spanish

Verb

fable

1. First-person singular (yo) present subjunctive form of fablar.
2. Formal second-person singular (usted) present subjunctive form of fablar.
3. Third-person singular (él, ella, also used with usted^?) present subjunctive form of fablar.
4. Formal second-person singular (usted) imperative form of fablar.

English

Etymology

From Middle English plot, plotte, from Old English plot (“a plot of ground”), from Proto-Germanic *plataz, *platjaz (“a patch”), of uncertain origin. Cognate with Middle Low German plet (“patch, strip of cloth, rags”), German Bletz (“rags, bits, strip of land”), Gothic ???????????????????? (plats, “a patch, rags”). See also plat. See also complot for an influence on or source of the "secret plan" sense.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /pl?t/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /pl?t/
• Rhymes: -?t

Noun

plot (plural plots)

1. (authorship) The course of a story, comprising a series of incidents which are gradually unfolded, sometimes by unexpected means. [from 1640s]

   Synonym: storyline

   • c. 1725, Alexander Pope, View of the Epic Poem

2. An area or land used for building on or planting on. [from 1550s]

   Synonym: parcel

3. A graph or diagram drawn by hand or produced by a mechanical or electronic device.
4. A secret plan to achieve an end, the end or means usually being illegal or otherwise questionable. [from 1580s]

   Synonyms: conspiracy, scheme

5. Contrivance; deep reach thought; ability to plot or intrigue.
   • a. 1669, John Denham, On Mr Thomas Killigrew's Return from Venice, and Mr William Murrey's from Scotland

6. Participation in any stratagem or conspiracy.
7. A plan; a purpose.
   • 1650, Jeremy Taylor, The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

plot (third-person singular simple present plots, present participle plotting, simple past and past participle plotted)

1. (transitive) To conceive (a crime, etc).

2. (transitive) To trace out (a graph or diagram).

3. (transitive) To mark (a point on a graph, chart, etc).
   • 1602, Richard Carew, Survey on Cornwall

4. (intransitive) To conceive a crime, misdeed, etc.

Synonyms

• (contrive): becast
• (conceive a crime, etc): scheme
• (an area of land): lot

Derived terms

• replot

Translations

Anagrams

• OLTP, PTOL, lopt, polt

Albanian

Etymology

From plotë.

Adverb

plot

1. full, fully, full of

Czech

Etymology

From Proto-Slavic *plot?.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [?plot]

Noun

plot m

1. fence

Declension

Derived terms

• živý plot m

Related terms

• oplotit

Further reading

• plot in P?íru?ní slovník jazyka ?eského, 1935–1957
• plot in Slovník spisovného jazyka ?eského, 1960–1971, 1989

Dutch

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -?t

Verb

plot

1. first-, second- and third-person singular present indicative of plotten
2. imperative of plotten

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /plo/
• Rhymes: -o

Noun

plot m (plural plots)

1. traffic cone
2. cone used in slalom

Luxembourgish

Verb

plot

1. third-person singular present indicative of ploen
2. second-person plural present indicative of ploen
3. second-person plural imperative of ploen

Polish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /pl?t/

Noun

plot f

1. genitive plural of plota

Serbo-Croatian

Etymology

From Proto-Slavic *plot?.

Noun

pl?t m (Cyrillic spelling ?????)

1. fence

Declension

Spanish

Noun

plot m (plural plots)

1. (story-telling) plot