fabulist
(ˈfæbjʊlɪst)
[ad. F. fabuliste, f. L. fābula: see fable n. and -ist.]
1. One who relates fables or legends; a composer of apologues.
| 1593 Mundy Def. Contraries 12 The fabulists feigned Acteon to be turned into a Hart. 1682 Dudley Light to Paradise 93 Fortune, who..by the fabulist, is represented with a great Complaint in her mouth upon that occasion. 1757 Foote Author Prol., The Grecian fabulist, in moral lay, Has thus address'd the writers of this day. 1835 Johnsoniana 256 The fabulists frequently make the wolves converse with the lambs. 1874 Farrar Christ 45 The fabulists of Christendom..surround Christ's boyhood with a blaze of miracle. |
† b. A professional story-teller. Obs.
| 1605 B. Jonson Volpone ii. i, Stale Tabarine, the fabulist. 1698 R. Fergusson View Eccles. 84 The Sallaries of Buffoons, Fabulists or Revelers. |
2. One who invents falsehoods.
| 1625 Bp. Hall Public Thanksgiving Wks. 1837 V. 220 Those bold Fabulists..take a course to cast themselves into that pit, whence [etc.]. 1794 Paley Evid. ii. iii. (1817) 87 The mind of a forger or a fabulist. 1836–7 Sir W. Hamilton Metaph. (1877) I. iii. 47 The former [Heraclides] is confessed to have been an egregious fabulist. 1841 D'Israeli Amen. Lit. (1867) 151 The most ingenuous of voyagers has been condemned as an idle fabulist. |