apologue

English

Etymology

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

• IPA^(key): /ˈæpəlɒɡ/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Noun

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

• apologer
• apological

Related terms

• apologetic
• apology

Translations

a short story with a moral, often involving talking animals or objects

Bashkir: мәҫәл (məśəl) Catalan: apòleg (ca) m Czech: bajka (cs) f French: apologue (fr) m German: Lehrfabel f, Fabel (de) f Irish: apalóg f, fabhalscéal m, fáithscéal m, uirscéal m Italian: apologo (it) m Latin: apologus m Polish: apolog (pl) m, bajka (pl) f Portuguese: apólogo m Russian: ба́сня (ru) f (básnja), нравоучи́тельная ба́сня f (nravoučítelʹnaja básnja), аполо́г (ru) m (apológ) Spanish: apólogo m

rhetoric: use of fable to persuade the audience

French: apologue (fr) m Polish: apolog (pl) m, bajka (pl) f Russian: ба́йка (ru) f (bájka), ба́сня (ru) f (básnja)

French

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

•  IPA^(key): /a.pɔ.lɔɡ/

Noun

apologue m (plural apologues)

1. apologue

Further reading

• “apologue”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.