Etymologically
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fabulor

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ˈfaː.bʊ.ɫɔr][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [ˈfaː.bu.lor][1]

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

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