apologue

• From an apologue, tending to an express moral, he converted the fable into a conte_, in which narrative, description, observation, satire, dialogue have an independent value, and the moral is little more than an accident. —  A History of French Literature Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II.
• In less than six weeks he bit a baby; in two months he was the most depraved dog in Mayville, and in three ... he died I had no answer for the apologue--not even for the self-condemnatory tone in which he told it. —  Aladdin ; Co. A Romance of Yankee Magic
• But whether it be considered in one of its phases as a distorted "nature-myth," or in another as a demoralized apologue or parable--whether it be regarded at one time as a relic of primeval wisdom, or at another as a blurred transcript of a page of mediæval history--its critics agree in declaring it to be no mere creation of the popular fancy, no chance expression of the uncultured thought of the rude tiller of this or that soil. —  Russian Fairy Tales A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore
• 39 Footnote 2: The apologue, as we find it in Judges ix. —  The Life of Jesus
• This apologue has been a favorite with platonizing poets, like Spenser and Milton. —  A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century

Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the Same Context