fabulate

A folk story that is not entirely believable.

Noun

A folk story that is not entirely believable.
- It is a rule, though, that each fabulate, as well as every other narrative that requires credence or pretense or at least the possibility of belief as its ingredient, is based on either a truly existing or an assumed...
A folk story that is told for entertainment, and not intended to be taken as true.
- To jocular fabulates (Sherzfabulate) I place inter alia some of the “Tales of the Stupid Ogre” in Aarne’s Type Register. - 1948, Carl von Sydow, Selected Papers on Folklore, page 87:

Coined around 1934 by folklorist Carl von Sydow to contrast with memorate, see -ate (noun-forming suffix).

To tell invented stories, often those that involve fantasy, such as fables.
- Human fears, needs, dreams release the latent propensities of the subliminal soul, and to respond to them the fabulating imagination sets to work. - 1990, Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, Tractatus Brevus, Kluwer, page 38:
- The objects remain those of male fantasies, but from the start Maxine associates the ability to fantasize or fabulate with women and with Cantonese: […] - 1992, Donald C. Goellnicht, "Tang Ao in America: Male Subject...
- It is only this posture that permits him to discharge his function as a chief: to fabulate and to summon up the missing people. - 2006, Jérémie Valentin, “Gille Deleuze’s Political Posture”, chapter 12 of Constantin V....
To relate as or in the manner of a fable.
- Anyone who considers it a pleasure to compose short stories or to fabulate a tale, must remain silent and say nothing of her beauty. - 1990, Marianne Kalinke, Bridal-quest Romance in Medieval Iceland, page 74:
To tell fables, to narrate with fables.
- The Fort is ſo barricadoed, that it is hard ſcaling it : the refractary Rebell ſo guarded with Euill and Poyſon, ſo warded with unruly and deadly ; as if it were with Gyants in an Inchanted Towre, as they fabulate ; so...

From Latin fābulātus, perfect active participle of fābulor (“to tell stories, chat”) (see -ate (verb-forming suffix)), from fābula (“fable”).