FICTION • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Fiction

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/fˈɪkʃən/ Listen

noun

Fiction n.

1.

The act of feigning, inventing, or imagining; as, by a mere fiction of the mind.

2.

That which is feigned, invented, or imagined; especially, a feigned or invented story, whether oral or written. Hence: A story told in order to deceive; a fabrication; opposed to fact, or reality. "The fiction of those golden apples kept by a dragon." "When it could no longer be denied that her flight had been voluntary, numerous fictions were invented to account for it."

3.

Fictitious literature; comprehensively, all works of imagination; specifically, novels and romances. "The office of fiction as a vehicle of instruction and moral elevation has been recognized by most if not all great educators."

4.

(Law) An assumption of a possible thing as a fact, irrespective of the question of its truth.

5.

Any like assumption made for convenience, as for passing more rapidly over what is not disputed, and arriving at points really at issue.

Synonyms: Fabrication; invention; fable; falsehood. Fiction, Fabrication. Fiction is opposed to what is real; fabrication to what is true. Fiction is designed commonly to amuse, and sometimes to instruct; a fabrication is always intended to mislead and deceive. In the novels of Sir Walter Scott we have fiction of the highest order. The poems of Ossian, so called, were chiefly fabrications by Macpherson.

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Etymology of 'Fiction'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Fiction" Quotes from Famous Books

... a subject of curious inquiry to those who delight in human absurdities, if ever there were a character drawn in works of fiction so extravagantly ridiculous as some which daily experience presents to our view. We have encountered people in the broad thoroughfares of life more eccentric than ever we read of in books; people who, if all their foolish ...

— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... and windows swept the chill of twilight, and while she lighted the big lamp he did her bidding and closed the doors and windows. Those shelves of books, classics and famous, time-tried fiction, leered at him from their racks. The gold of titles, the blues and reds and greens of covers fairly mocked him, and he saw himself struggling with the menace of sin; he saw an honourable career and carefully nurtured ambition fading ...

— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears

... in the eyes of the Landers the character of a complete fiction, but for what purpose it was so got up, they could not divine. The king could gain little or nothing by their protracted stay in his capital; he had received his presents, and therefore it was ...

— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

... seventies the artist illustrated many works of fiction. The most notable instance was Thackeray's Esmond in 1868—a work which he had long wished to be chosen ...

— George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians • T. Martin Wood

... have been unwilling to inform the world that a soul which many devout Roman Catholics had left to perish had been snatched from destruction by the courageous charity of a woman of loose character. It is therefore not unlikely that he would prefer a fiction, at once probable and edifying, to a truth which could not fail to give scandal. (1856.)——It should seem that no transactions in history ought to be more accurately known to us than those which took place ...

— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

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