Definition

1. Noun:
   • A person who composes or relates fables: A fabulist is someone who creates or tells stories, typically fables, which are short tales that convey a moral lesson, often featuring animals as characters.
   • A liar or teller of falsehoods: By extension, a fabulist can refer to a person who habitually invents or tells lies or elaborate untruths.

Usage Examples

• Noun (Creator of fables):
  • Aesop is perhaps the most famous fabulist in history.
  • The modern writer is considered a fabulist for her stories featuring talking trees.
• Noun (Teller of falsehoods):
  • The politician was exposed as a fabulist who invented stories about his past.
  • Don't believe him; he's a charming fabulist.

Advanced Usage

• "A congenital fabulist": A person who seems born to or inherently inclined to tell lies.
  • He wasn't just lying about one event; he was revealed to be a congenital fabulist.
• Used in literary criticism to describe an author whose work is characterized by fantastical or mythical storytelling.
  • The novelist's style places him among the great fabulists of the 20th century.

Variants and Related Words

• Fable (n): A short story, typically with animals as characters, conveying a moral.
  • The fable of "The Tortoise and the Hare" teaches about perseverance.
• Fabulous (adj): Extraordinarily good; also, known from fables, mythical.
  • We had a fabulous time at the party. (Note: This common meaning of "wonderful" is distinct from the original "fable-like" meaning.)

Synonyms

• Storyteller (especially for the first meaning).
• Mythmaker.
• Prevaricator (for the second meaning).
• Fabricator.

Related Phrases

• "A fabulist of the first order": An expert or extreme liar or storyteller.
  • His testimony was dismissed; the jury saw him as a fabulist of the first order.

Noun

1. a person who tells or invents fables