Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A moral fable, especially one having animals or inanimate objects as characters.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A story or relation of fictitious events intended to convey useful truths; a moral fable; an allegory. An apologue differs from a parable in that the latter is drawn from events which occur among mankind, and is therefore supported by probability, while the former may be founded on supposed actions of brutes or inanimate things, and therefore does not require to be supported by probability. Æsop's fables are good examples of apologues.
Wiktionary
- n. A short story with a moral, often involving talking animals or objects; a fable.
- n. Use of fable to persuade the audience.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A story or relation of fictitious events, intended to convey some moral truth; a moral fable.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a short moral story (often with animal characters)
Etymologies
- French, from Latin apologus, from Greek apologos : apo-, apo- + logos, speech; see leg- in Indo-European roots.
Examples
“Though he acknowledges the delicacy of criticizing the Soviet regime, Eliot's political objection was that the only good guy in Orwell's allegory seemed to be Trotsky, and he didn't like Trotsky: Now I think my own dissatisfaction with this apologue is that the effect is simply one of negation.”
“On this occasion, Campobasso gave his opinion, couched in the apologue of the Traveller, the Adder, and the Fox; and reminded the Duke of the advice which Reynard gave to the man, that he should crush his mortal enemy, now that chance had placed his fate at his disposal.”
“Professor Benfey, followed by Mr. Keith Falconer, discovers between the Æsopic and the Hindu apologue: — “In the former animals are allowed to act as animals: the latter makes them act as men in the form of animals.””
“China, would for ever fix their literature — poetry, history and criticism,230 the apologue and the anecdote.”
“We celebrate a national fable, an apologue we tell ourselves periodically to keep the myth of representative government alive.”
“When you came afterwards to think over one of those wonderful evenings when he had talked for hours, almost without interruption, you hardly found more than an epigram, a fugitive flash of critical insight, an apologue or pretty story charmingly told.”
“His talk took on a sort of autumnal richness of colour, and assumed a new width of range; he now used pathos as well as humour and generally brought in a story or apologue to lend variety to the entertainment.”
“At the time this apologue amused me; in the light of later events it assumed a tragic significance.”
“A less sanguine tone marks the close of the apologue in which Reason and Truth, her daughter, take a triumphant journey in France and elsewhere, about the time of the accession of Turgot.”
“It is an old saying, [2161] A blow with a word strikes deeper than a blow with a sword: and many men are as much galled with a calumny, a scurrilous and bitter jest, a libel, a pasquil, satire, apologue, epigram, stage-play or the like, as with any misfortune whatsoever.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘apologue’.
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Rhetorical Devices
syllepsis, zeugma, trope, wellerism, anastrophe, anaphora, apostrophe, metonymy, chiasmus, antimetabole, syncope, open-list and 431 more...
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briwref's list
defalcation, macerate, beldam, nescience, ochlocracy, bibelot, estivate, spatulated, introversive, mastoidal, belletristic, objurgation and 108 more...
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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hyblends
words that never were; always are; and probably will not becoming forth (or fifth or seventh.....)
hyblend, nashrash, syllergy, herenow, wonderburst, beattitude, havetude, beance, nowance, amusic, bestance, circlestance and 240 more...
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apo-
away from; separate
jmjarmstrong JM enjoys sitting on a good apologue until he falls off it. Jan 10, 2011