Definition of fiction in English:

fiction

Line breaks: fic|tion
Pronunciation: /ˈfɪkʃ(ə)n
 
/

noun

1 [mass noun] Literature in the form of prose, especially novels, that describes imaginary events and people.
More example sentences
  • The prize is popularly seen as an award for a new novelists of adult literary fiction, but this is not the case.
  • He began his writing career with genre fiction, from historical novels to vampire horror sagas.
  • In France Zola was the dominant practitioner of naturalism in prose fiction and the chief exponent of its doctrines.
Synonyms
novels, stories, creative writing, imaginative writing, works of the imagination, prose literature, narration, story telling; romance, fable
2Something that is invented or untrue: they were supposed to be keeping up the fiction that they were happily married
More example sentences
  • Their press release, penned by Pyro, is a more entertaining fiction than plenty of novels published this year.
  • Sometimes misinformation, exaggerated fictions and relics of wartime propaganda are reported in the media.
  • But the motorcycle story was such an outrageous fiction that I thought the readers of e-Poshta should know.
Synonyms
fabrication, invention, lies, fibs, concoction, untruth, falsehood, fantasy, fancy, illusion, sham, nonsense
vulgar slang bullshit
Australian/New Zealand vulgar slang bulldust
2.1A belief or statement which is false, but is often held to be true because it is expedient to do so: the notion of the country being a democracy is a polite fiction
More example sentences
  • He thinks he can rebuild the polite fictions of September 10.
  • That is his function - to take the polite fictions and drag them back to the real world.
  • So all of the conventions created in the wake of the Second World War - the Geneva Conventions, the very concept of war crimes - these are all just polite fictions to be crumpled?

Origin

late Middle English (in the sense 'invented statement'): via Old French from Latin fictio(n-), from fingere 'form, contrive'. Compare with feign and figment.

Derivatives

fictionist

noun
More example sentences
  • Trevor is the best short fictionist in England, and I would make a similar claim for John Updike in this country.
  • Playwrights since Pirandello, fictionists since Proust, have been pondering this question, lightly or ponderously.
  • He was the editor who discovered or championed many of the world's most important fictionists and poets of the second half of the 20th century.

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Pronunciation: ˌsʌrəpˈtɪʃəs
adjective
kept secret...