fable — OET · Shobdo

fable

noun

1 the fable of the sick lion and the wary fox:

moral tale, parable, apologue, allegory, bestiary.

2 the fables of ancient Greece:

myth, legend, saga, epic, folk tale, folk story, traditional story, tale, story, fairy tale, narrative, romance;

folklore, lore, mythology, fantasy, oral history, tradition, folk tradition, old wives' tales;

technical mythos, mythus;

informal yarn.

3 it's a fable that I have a taste for fancy restaurants:

falsehood, fib, fabrication, deception, made-up story, trumped-up story, fake news, invention, concoction, piece of fiction, fiction, falsification, falsity, fairy story/tale, cock and bull story;

lie, untruth, barefaced lie;

(little) white lie, half-truth, exaggeration, prevarication, departure from the truth, alternative fact;

yarn, story, red herring, rumour, myth, flight of fancy, figment of the imagination;

pretence, pretext, sham, ruse, wile, trickery, stratagem;

informal tall story, tall tale, whopper;

British, informal porky, pork pie, porky pie;

humorous terminological inexactitude;

vulgar slang bullshit;

Australian, New Zealand, vulgar slang bulldust.

fable Oxford Dictionary of English