favola

Forms

favola f (plural favole)^[1] Old Italian forms include fabola, Old Italian faola, Old Italian faula and Old Italian favula.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin fābula (“talk, story, tale”),^[3][4][5][1] kept as a semi-learned word of the schools.^[3][6][7] The same Latin word gave two popular words, fiaba and fola.^[3][4][6] Nocentini explains the three forms by their prosody: favola suits Tuscan, while fiaba, through *fabla and *flaba, and fola, through *faula, lost a syllable as northern forms do.^[4] Devoto adds that the regular outcome would have been ⟨*fabbia⟩.^[8] The French word is fable.^[4][9]

Latin fābula is formed from for (“to speak”) with the suffix -bula,^[4][10][1] beside fāma (“talk, fame”) and fātum (“destiny”).^[11] De Vaan traces the root to Proto-Indo-European *bʰeh₂- (“to speak”).^[11] The Latin verb fābulor (“to talk”) lives on in Spanish hablar and Portuguese falar, and in Italian through its diminutive in favellare.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is a Sienese translation of Egidio Romano of 1288;^[2][3] DELI dates the sense “a short tale in prose or verse, with a moral, about an imagined event” to the 13th century, in Iacomo de' Tolomei.^[2][3] In Old Italian the word already named any invented story with fantastic elements, especially the myths of classical literature.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian already used favola for a play written for the stage, for idle and empty talk, for a lie, for the course of a person's life, and for the person everyone laughs at.^[2] DELI dates “something untrue, a fancy” to before 1348, in Giovanni Villani.^[3] Petrarch uses the word for a human life: la mia favola breve è già compita (“my brief story is already ended”).^[5][7] Dante has favole for the idle tales preached from the pulpit.^[5]

The verb favoleggiare is in Dante (before 1321), favoloso from 1525 and favolista “writer of fables” from before 1798; favolello, a short medieval narrative poem, is Old French fablel, a diminutive of fable.^[3] Modern Italian keeps the moral fable of Aesop and Phaedrus beside the fairy tale, and in colloquial use calls anything wonderful una favola;^[5][12][13] da favola means “fabulous, splendid”.^[5][12][13]

Timeline

• 1288 – A Sienese translation of Egidio Romano uses favola.^[2]
• 13th century – Iacomo de' Tolomei uses favola for a short moral tale.^[3]
• Before 1321 – Dante uses favoleggiare “to tell tales”.^[3]
• Before 1348 – Giovanni Villani uses favola for something untrue.^[3]
• 1525 – Favoloso appears in Mario Equicola.^[3]
• Before 1798 – Aurelio Bertola uses favolista “writer of fables”.^[3]
• 1869 – Tommaseo–Bellini records favolello.^[3]
• 1965 – Favolistica, the literary genre of fables, is recorded.^[3][4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A fable: a short tale in verse or prose, often with animals, plants or objects as characters, that teaches a moral: la morale della favola.^[5][14][12]
2. A fairy tale, a fantastic story, especially one told to children; see fiaba: Ogni sera il nonno inventava una favola nuova.^[5][12][7]
3. A legend or myth: le favole dei popoli nordici.^[5][13]
4. A made-up story, a fib: Non credere alle sue favole.^[5][14][13]
5. Gossip, and the person or thing gossiped about: essere la favola del paese, to be the talk of the town.^[5][14][12]
6. (literature, theatre) A dramatic work: favola pastorale, a pastoral play.^[5][14][13]
7. (literature) The plot of a literary work; see fabula.^[5][7]
8. (literary) The course of a human life.^[5][7][13]
9. (colloquial) Something or someone wonderful: Quella spiaggia è una favola. Da favola: splendid, extraordinary.^[5][12][13]

Word family

• favoletta
• favoleggiare
• favoloso
• favolista
• favolistica
• favolare
• favolatore
• controfavola
• favoliere

Related words

• fiaba
• fola
• fabula
• favella
• favellare
• fato
• Latin fābula
• French fable

Usage notes

A separate favola of medieval law named a sworn agreement among the members of a neighbourhood community (vicinia) on matters of common interest, such as which crops to grow and the rights of those who worked the land.^[5][15] DEI records it in Venetian territory from the 14th to the 17th century and as Medieval Latin fabula, once common from the Ticino to the Tagliamento; it presupposes Latin fabulari in the sense “to speak”.^[6] GRADIT dates it to 1956 and takes it as probably derived from favolare.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ a b c d e f g Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
6. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1609
7. ^ a b c d e Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
8. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier, p. 179
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
12. ^ a b c d e f Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
13. ^ a b c d e f g Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
14. ^ a b c d Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
15. ^ Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)