FAIRY TALE

Pronunciation (US): (GB):

I. (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

An interesting but highly implausible story; often told as an excuse

Synonyms:

cock-and-bull story; fairy story; fairy tale; fairytale; song and dance

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Hypernyms ("fairy tale" is a kind of...):

fib; story; tale; taradiddle; tarradiddle (a trivial lie)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A story about fairies; told to amuse children

Synonyms:

fairy story; fairy tale; fairytale

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Hypernyms ("fairy tale" is a kind of...):

narration; narrative; story; tale (a message that tells the particulars of an act or occurrence or course of events; presented in writing or drama or cinema or as a radio or television program)

Domain member category:

Bluebeard ((fairytale) a monstrous villain who marries seven women; he kills the first six for disobedience)

Credits

Context examples:

Each picture told a story; mysterious often to my undeveloped understanding and imperfect feelings, yet ever profoundly interesting: as interesting as the tales Bessie sometimes narrated on winter evenings, when she chanced to be in good humour; and when, having brought her ironing-table to the nursery hearth, she allowed us to sit about it, and while she got up Mrs. Reed's lace frills, and crimped her nightcap borders, fed our eager attention with passages of love and adventure taken from old fairy tales and other ballads; or (as at a later period I discovered) from the pages of Pamela, and Henry, Earl of Moreland.