Fiction, n.
Etymology: [F. fiction, L. fictio, fr. fingere, fictum to form, shape, invent, feign. See Feign.]
1. The act of feigning, inventing, or imagining; as, by a mere fiction of the mind. Bp. Stillingfleet.
2. That which is feigned, invented, or imagined; especially, a feigned or invented story, whether oral or written. Hence: A story told in order to deceive; a fabrication; -- opposed to fact, or reality. The fiction of those golden apples kept by a dragon. Sir W. Raleigh. When it could no longer be denied that her flight had been voluntary, numerous fictions were invented to account for it. Macaulay.
3. Fictitious literature; comprehensively, all works of imagination; specifically, novels and romances. The office of fiction as a vehicle of instruction and moral elevation has been recognized by most if not all great educators. Dict. of Education.
4. (Law)
3 more senses
An assumption of a possible thing as a fact, irrespective of the question of its truth. Wharton.
5. Any like assumption made for convenience, as for passing more rapidly over what is not disputed, and arriving at points really at issue.
Syn. -- Fabrication; invention; fable; falsehood. -- Fiction, Fabrication. Fiction is opposed to what is real; fabrication to what is true. Fiction is designed commonly to amuse, and sometimes to instruct; a fabrication is always intended to mislead and deceive. In the novels of Sir Walter Scott we have fiction of the highest order. The poems of Ossian, so called, were chiefly fabrications by Macpherson.
Shades of meaning
Fiction is now chiefly used of a prose work in narrative form in which the characters are partly or wholly imaginary, and which is designed to portray human life, with or without a practical lesson; a romance portrays what is picturesque or striking, as a mere fiction may not do; novel is a general name for any continuous fictitious narrative, especially a love-story; fiction and novel are used with little difference of meaning, except that novel characterizes a work in which the emotional element is especially prominent. The moral of the fable is expressed formally; the lesson of the fiction, if any, is inwrought. A fiction is studied; a myth grows up without intent. A legend may be true, but can not be historically verified; a myth has been received as true at some time, but is now known to be false. A fabrication is designed to deceive; it is a less odious word than falsehood, but is really stronger, as a falsehood may be a sudden unpremeditated statement, while a fabrication is a series of statements carefully studied and fitted together in order to deceive; the falsehood is all false; the fabrication may mingle the true with the false. A figment is something imaginary which the one who utters it may or may not believe to be true; we say, "That statement is a figment of his imagination." The story may be either true or false, and covers the various senses of all the words in the group. Apologue, a word simply transferred from Greek into English, is the same as fable. Compare allegory.