fiction

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   Stories about imaginary people and events, usually in the form of novels.

   I am a great reader of fiction.

2. 2
   noun

   Something that is not true; an invented account.

   The company's accounts contained a number of blatant fictions.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Fiction dates from late Middle English and ultimately derives from Latin fingere, “to form” or “contrive.” It belongs to the same word family as faint, feign, feint, and figment.

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *dʰeyǵʰ- Proto-Indo-European *dʰi-né-ǵʰ-ti Proto-Italic *θingō Proto-Italic *fingōder. Latin fingō Proto-Indo-European *-tisder. Proto-Italic *-tjō Latin -tiō Latin fictiōder. Old French ficcionbor. Middle English ficcioun English fiction From Middle English ficcioun, from Old French ficcion (“dissimulation, ruse, invention”), from Latin fictiō (“a making, fashioning, a feigning, a rhetorical or legal fiction”), from fingō (“to form, mold, shape, devise, feign”). Displaced native Old English lēasspell (literally “false story”).

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External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary