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fabulation

/ˌfæbjəˈleɪʃən/
IPA guide

Other forms: fabulations

A fabulation is a made-up story or a lie, especially a far-fetched one. If you break a window and blame it on your badly behaved pet rabbit, everyone will know right away it’s a fabulation, so don’t even try.

The noun fabulation is related to the verb fabulate, meaning "to tell a tall tale," from the Latin root fabula, meaning "a story or tale." Realistic fiction that includes dreamlike or fantastic elements as if they were real is also called fabulation. And in psychiatry, fabulation is a symptom of mental illness in which a person tells stories they’ve invented but believe are true. In all these cases, the stories are far-fetched and unreal, but told as if they are or could be true.

Definitions of fabulation
  1. noun
    a made-up story or a lie
  2. noun
    the act of making up something fictional or untrue
  3. noun
    (literature) a genre of fiction that combines realistic elements with magical, fantastic, or surreal elements
  4. noun
    (psychiatry) a symptom of mental illness in which the person tells stories they have invented but which they believe to be true
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