Fabulous

a. [ad. L. fābulōsus, f. fābula: see FABLE sb. and -OUS. Cf. F. fabuleux.]

  1.  Of a person (or anything personified): Fond of relating fables or legends, given to fabling.

  Now only with sbs. like historian, chronicler; cf. sense 3.

1546.  Bale, Eng. Votaries, II. (1551), 10. Wherof with the froth of that ragynge gulfe, the fabulouse Poetes reporteth Venus to be engendered, whych was the first mother of the pagane prestes chastyte.

1591.  Shaks., 1 Hen. VI., II. iii. 18. I see report is fabulous and false.

1637.  R. Humphrey, trans. St. Ambrose, i. 26. Aristotle … holdeth God to bee … no otherwise then the fabulous Poets have feigned.

c. 1650.  Cowley, On the Death of Mr. Crashaw, 28. Wanton as Girls, as old Wives, Fabulous!

1805.  N. Nicholls, in Corr. with Gray (1843), 43. An author [Herodotus] of great veracity, as far as he had the means of information himself, and never fabulous except when he gave the relations of others.

1864.  J. H. Burton, The Scot Abroad, I. i. 2. Such is the account of the origin of the League with France, as told by Boece and our other fabulous chroniclers.

  † b.  Fond of listening to fables or stories. Obs.

1589.  Puttenham, Eng. Poesie, I. vii. (Arb.), 30. Thus what in writing of rymes and registring of lyes was the Clergy of that fabulous age wholly occupied.

1669.  Gale, Crt. Gentiles, I. I. ii. 12. It was Plato’s Custome to hide his choicest opinions, under the figure of some Fable, because of the vulgar sotr, least he should too much displease the fabulous people, by making mention of the Jews, who were so infamous amongst them.

  2.  Spoken of or celebrated in fable or myth; fabled, mythical. [So L. fabulosus.]

1601.  Holland, Pliny, I. 91. Atlas the most fabulous mountaine of all Africk.

1887.  Swinburne, Locrine, Dedication, viii.

  3.  Of a narrative: Of the nature of a fable or myth, full of fables, unhistorical, legendary. Fabulous age, period, etc.: one of which the accounts are chiefly or entirely mythical.

1555.  Eden, Decades (Arb.), 248. All such thynges as vnto this day haue byn wrytten of owld autours of the places where spices growe, are all fabulous and falsse.

1656.  M. Ben Israel, Vind. Judæorum, in Phenix (1708), II. 401. I have seen a fabulous Narrative of the Proceedings of a great Council of the Jews.

1712.  Philips, Distrest Mother, The Preface. So long as there is nothing improbable in the Supposition, a judicious Critick will always be pleased, when he finds a Matter of Fact (especially so far removed into the dark and fabulous Ages) falsified, for the Embellishment of a whole Poem.

1776.  Adam Smith, W. N., I. xi. I. 214. The story of this populousness and high cultivation is in a great measure fabulous.

1855.  H. Reed, Lect. Eng. Hist., iii. 78. In the fabulous chronicles of those ages there may, perhaps, be germs of truth; and, hereafter, historical science may bring to light more than our philosophy now dreams of.

1871.  Yeats, Techn. Hist. Comm., 60. Like every ancient people, the Chinese possess also their fabulous and semi-historical periods.

  4.  Of alleged existences or facts: Belonging to fable, mythical, legendary.

1577–87.  Holinshed, Chron., I. 121/1. Which because in the iudgement of the most it may seeme meere fabulous, we will omit and passe ouer.

1644.  Milton, Areop. (Arb.), 35. I know they are as lively, and as vigorously productive, as those fabulous Dragons teeth; and being sown up and down, may chance to spring up armed men.

1737.  Chesterf., Wks. (1777), II. 70. I take the fabulous birth of Minerva, the goddess of arms, wisdom, arts, and sciences, to have been an allegory of the antients, calculated to shew, that women of natural and usual births must not aim at those accomplishments.

1833.  Lyell, Princ. Geol., III. 330. We are almost tempted to speculate on the former existence of the Atlantis of Plato, which may be true in geology, although fabulous as an historical event.

1875.  Jowett, Plato (ed. 2), III. 69, The Republic, Introduction. I must take an illustration from that world of fiction in which painters find their winged dragons and other fabulous monsters.

  † b.  Of a doctrine, error or notion: Based on or originating in fable or fiction. Obs.

1602.  Warner, Alb. Eng., Epit. (1612), 351. Our Historie auoideth not the suspition of some fabulous errours.

1651.  Hobbes, Leviath., IV. xliv. 334. The Dæmonology of the Heathen Poets, that is to say, their fabulous Doctrine concerning Dæmons, which are but Idols, or Phantasmes of the brain, without any real nature of their own, distinct from humane fancy; such as are dead mens Ghosts, and Fairies, and other matter of old Wives tales.

1794.  Paine (title), The Age of Reason, being an investigation of true and of fabulous Theology.

  5.  a. Resembling a fable, absurd, ridiculous. rare. b. Such as is met with only in fable; beyond the usual range of fact; astonishing, incredible.

  a.  1561.  T. Norton, Calvin’s Inst., IV. 50. How vayne and fabulous is it, to iudge the Chirch alredy in euery part holy and spottlesse, wherof all the members are spotty and very vncleane?

1611.  Tourneur, The Atheist’s Tragedie, II. vi.

1853.  Brimley, Ess., 278. The pretence [of Bulwer-Lytton’s My Novel] is fabulous and the performance does not answer to it.

  b.  1609.  Holland, Amm. Marcell., 228. With a fabulous and incredible multitude [L. cum multitudine fabulosa].

1822–56.  De Quincey, Confess., Wks. I. 234. foot-n. According to the modern slang phrase, I had in the meridian stage of my opium career used ‘fabulous’ quantities.

1852.  Miss Mitford, in L’Estrange, Life III. xiii. 237. His [Daniel Webster’s] passion for fish, in every way—to catch, and to cook, and to eat—is something fabulous.

1857.  Ld. Houghton, in Life (1891), II. xii. 18. I had a good passage to Havre, and got here by noon. A curious-looking place, like a sea-place on the stage. All the houses run up for the summer, and let at fabulous rents.

1859.  Macaulay, W. Pitt, Misc. Writings (1889), 431. He found that the waste of the servants’ hall was almost fabulous.