apologue

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English

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Etymology

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Borrowed from French apologue, from Latin apologus from Ancient Greek ἀπόλογος (apólogos, story, tale, fable) from ἀπό- (apó-, off, away from) + λόγος (lógos, speech).

Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key): /ˈæpəlɒɡ/
  • Audio (US):(file)

Noun

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apologue (countable and uncountable, plural apologues)

  1. A short story with a moral, often involving talking animals or objects; a fable.
    • 1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 7, in Vanity Fair [], London: Bradbury and Evans [], published 1848, →OCLC:
      "Still I must bear my hard lot as well as I can—at least, I shall be amongst gentlefolks, and not with vulgar city people": and she fell to thinking of her Russell Square friends with that very same philosophical bitterness with which, in a certain apologue, the fox is represented as speaking of the grapes.
    • 1891, Edward Burnett Tylor, Primitive Culture, page 409:
      [] but though the mythic hero may thus be made to figure in a moral apologue, an imagination so little in keeping with his unethic nature jars upon the reader's mind.
  2. (rhetoric) The use of fable to persuade the audience.

Derived terms

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Translations

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French

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Etymology

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From Latin apologus, from Ancient Greek ἀπόλογος (apólogos).

Noun

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apologue m (plural apologues)

  1. apologue

Further reading

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