fabulor

Forms

fābulor (present infinitive fābulārī or fābulārier, perfect active fābulātus sum); first conjugation, deponent^[1] Plautus and Terence have the infinitive fābulārier.^[2] Active forms such as fābulem occur in manuscripts.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is from Latin fābula (“talk, story”) + -or,^[4][1][3] and that noun comes from for (“to speak”).^[1][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Ennius has someone said to know how to chat.^[4]

Semantic evolution

It is to talk, especially familiarly, to converse or chat, and with an object or direct speech to say: in Plautus, asked what he is hearing, someone answers, what I am telling you.^[4] Plautus and Terence have the old infinitive fābulārier, and manuscripts have active forms.^[2][3] Apuleius uses it of inventing a story or fable.^[4] Döderlein distinguishes garrīre, talking from fondness for talk, fābulārī, talk with regard to its emptiness, and blaterāre, with regard to its foolishness.^[6]

Timeline

• 204–169 BC – Ennius of chatting.^[4]
• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus.^[4][2]
• 190–159 BC – Terence.^[2]
• c. 125–175 AD – Apuleius of making up a fable.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To talk, converse, chat; to say.^[4][2][1]
2. To make up a story, invent a fable.^[4][1]

Word family

• fābulātiō
• fābulātor

Related words

• fābula
• for

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b c Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper