fiction (fikshon)

[F. fiction = Pr. ficxio, fiction = Sp. ficcion = Pg. ficção = It. fizione, finzione, We have never dreamt that parliaments had any right whatever to force a currency of their own fiction in the place of that which is real. Burke, Rev. in France. 2. The act of feigning, inventing, or imagining; a false deduction or conclusion: as, to be misled by a mere fiction of the brain. They see thoroughly into the fallacies and fictions of the delusions of this kind. Bacon, Moral Fables, vii., Expl. Sad and disconsolate persons use to create comforts to themselves by fiction of fancy. Jer . Taylor , Works (ed. 1835), I. 269. 3. That which is feigned, invented, or imagined; a feigned story; an account which is a product of mere imagination; a false statement. Renowned Abraham, Thy noble Acts Excell the Fictions of Heroik Facts. Sylvester, tr. of Du Bartas's Weeks, ii., The Fathers. Is it not monstrous that this player here, But in a fiction , in a dream of pa ion, Could force his soul so to his own conceit? Shak., Hamlet, ii. 2. This is a very ancient cittie, if the tradition of Antenor's being the founder be not a fiction . Evelyn , Diary, June, 1645. Nor do I perceive that any one shrinks from telling fie tions to children, on matters upon which it is thought well that they should not know the truth. H. Sidgwick , Methods of Ethics, p. 293. 4. In literature : (a) A prose work (not dramatic) of the imagination in narrative form; a story; a novel. One important rule belongs to the composition of a fic tion , which I suppose the writers of fiction seldom think of, viz., never to fabricate or introduce a character to whom greater talents or wisdom is attributed than the author himself po e es; if he does, how shall this character be sustained? J. Foster, in Everts, p. 241. ( b ) Collectively, literature consisting of imaginative narration; story-telling. No kind of literature is so attractive as fiction . Quarterly Rev. The only work of fiction , in all probability, with which he [Bunyan] could conipare his pilgrim, was his old favourite, the legend of Sir Bevis of Southampton. He saw that, in employing fiction to make truth clear and goodne attractive, he was only following the example which every Christian ought to propose to himself. Macaulay , Bunyan. What other cases are there of fictional personages hav- N. and Q., 6th ser., IX. 467. Thus, some make Comedy a representation of mean, and others of bad men; some think that its e ence consists in the unimportance, others in the fictitiousne of the trans- action. Johnson, Rambler, No. 125. fictive (fik'tiv), a . [= F. fictif , fic- tivus , fictus , pp. of fingere , form, feign: see fic- tion.] 1. Formed by the imagination; not real- ly existing; supposititious; fictitious. [Rare.] And therefore to those things whose grounds were very true, Though naked yet and bare (not having to content The wayward curious ear), gave fictive ornament. The action of a magnet on an external point is equiva- lent to that of a fictive layer of a total ma equal to zero, distributed along the surface according to a certain law. At kins on, tr. of Mascart and Joubert, I. 300. 2. Resulting from imagination; belonging to or consisting of fiction; imaginative. [Rare.] IMG:content-1268.png:[blocks in formation] fictively (fik'tiv-li), adv . In a fictive manner. fictor (fik'tor), n. [L. fictor , one who makes images of clay, wax, stone, etc., a baker of of fering-cakes, a maker, a feigner, fictus , pp. of fingere , form, fashion, feign: see fiction . An artist who works in wax, clay, or other plastic material, as distinguished from one who works in bronze, marble, ivory, or other solid sub- stance. Ficula (fik'ū-lä), n. [NL., dim. of L. ficus , a fig: see fig 2.] A genus of gastropods, of the family Pyrulida ; the fig-shells or pear-shells: so named from their shape. The genus includes trop i- With fancy'd Rules and arbitrary Laws Matter and Motion he [man) restrains; And study'd Lines and fictious Circles draws. Prior, On Exodus iii. 14., st. 6. fictitious (fik-tish'us), a. [= Sp. Pg. ficticio , ficticius , improp. fictitius , artificial, coun- terfe it, fictitious, fictus , pp. of fingere , form, feign: see fiction .] 1. Pertaining to or con- sisting of fiction; imaginatively produced or set forth; created by the imagination: as, a fictitious hero; fictitious literature. 2. Existing only in imagination; feigned; not true or real: as, a fictitious claim. In faithful mem'ry she records the crimes, Or real or fictitious , of the times. The poets began to substitute fictitious names, under which they exhibited particular characters. Goldsmith, Origin of Poetry. Two treaties were drawn up, one on white paper, the other on red: the former real, the latter fictitious . Macaulay, Lord Clive. The woodcock, stiffening to fictitious mud, Cheats the young sportsman thirsting for his blood. O. W. Holmes , The Mind's Diet. 4. A umed as real; taking the place of some- thing real; regarded as genuine. Also called Pyrula . See cut under fig - shell . Ficulidæ (fi-ku'li-dē), n. pl . [NL., Ficula + -ida .] A family of gastropods, typified by the genus Ficula : same as Pyrulidæ . Ficus (fi'kus), n. [L., a fig-tree, a fig: see fig2 .] 1. In bot . , a very large genus of tropical and sub- tropical trees or shrubs, of the urticaceous tribe Artocarpeæ, characterized by bearing their mi- nute unisexual flowers within a nearly closed globose or pear-shaped receptacle. The genus is remarkable for the peculiar arrangement by which cro - fertilization is effected through the agency of insects. There are always three forms of flowers, the staminate, the pistillate, and a third, the gall-flower, which resembles a, Setting-fid. , Splicing-fid. word; cf. LL. harp a , It. arpa , F. harpe , etc., harp, of Teut. origin. Another derivation, fidicula , commonly pl. fidiculæ , a small stringed instrument, a small lute or cithern (dim. of fides , a stringed instrument, a lute, lyre, cith- ern), hardly agrees with the Teut. and not at all with the Rom. forms.] 1. A musical stringed instrument of the viol cla ; a violin. See viol , violin , crowd2. This is the proper English name, but among musicians it has been superseded by violin , the name fiddle , except in popular language, being used humorously or in slight contempt. Harpe and fethill bot he thay fande, Get terne, and als so the sawtrye. For hym was levere have at his beddes heed Twenty bookes, clad in black or reed, Of Aristotle and his philosophie, Than robes riche or fithele or gay sautrie. occupied by the pupa of a species of Blastophaga or other the pistillate but is incapable of fertilization, and is usually hymenopterous insect. In a large group of species the three forms are found within the same receptacle; but in much the larger number, as in the common fig, the female flowers are in one receptacle and the male and gall flowers toge- ther in another. The perfect insect is formed synchro- nously with the maturity of the pollen of the male flowers, through which it makes its way and escapes by a per for a- tion made at the apex of the receptacle. In what way it conveys the pollen to the pistillate flowers in the closed female receptacle is not understood, but it is believed that it is done, and that by this means only the female flowers are fertilized. Generally the barren and fertile receptacles are upon the same tree and are similar in appearance, but in the common fig they are upon separate trees, and differ so much in form that the sterile, known as the wild fig or caprifig, has been considered by many botanists as a spe- cies distinct from the other. There are about 600 species, the greater number belonging to the islands of the Indian and Pacific oceans, though there are many in tropical Amer- ica. Three or four species are found in Florida. The ge- nus includes the common fig ( F. Carica ) , the banian ( F. Benga lens is ), the india-rubber tree ( F. elastic a ), etc. The wood is generally soft and valuele . See fig2 , and cut. England, for smoothing the points of card-cloth- 2. In zoöl . , an old genus of mollusks: same as Pyrula . Klein , 1753.-3. [l. c.] In surg ., a fleshy excrescence, often soft and reddish, sometimes hard, hanging by a peduncle or formed like a fig. It occurs on the eyelids, chin, tongue, anus, or reproductive organs. Also called fig -wart. - Ficus unguium (ficus of the nails), a chronic paronychia in which the posterior wall of the nail becomes thickened and everted. fid (fid), n. [Also written fidd ; origin obscure. D. fid , fed , a skein, appears to be a different word. See fetlock .] 1. A small thick lump. [Prov. Eng.] -2. A piece or plug of tobacco. [Colloq.] -3. A bar of wood or metal used to support or steady anything.-4. Naut .: (a) A square bar of wood or iron, with a shoulder at one end, used to support a topmast or topgallant mast when swayed up into place. The fid pa es The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia: Dictionary IMG:content-1270.png:[merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small] 2201 lære, G. fiedler = Icel. fidhlari = Dan. fidler, a fiddler (cf. ML. vitulator, vidulator ); from the verb (which is not recorded in AS.): see fiddle.] 1. One who plays a fiddle, violin, or some similar instrument; a violinist. Nouzt to fare as a fitheler or a frere, for to seke festes. Piers Plowman (B), x. 92. I'm the king of the fidlers . Robin Hood's Birth (Child's Ballads, V. 351). What music will be in him when Hector has knocked out his brains, I know not,. unle the fiddler Apollo gets his sinews to make catlings on. Shak ., T. and C., iii. 3. 2. A sixpence. [Eng. slang.] -3. In the United States, a fiddler-crab. Fiddlers , which the inexperienced visitor might at first mistake for so many peculiar beetles, as they run about side-ways, each with his huge single claw folded upon his body like a wing-case. Harper's Mag., LXXVI. 735. 4. The common sandpiper, Tringoides hypoleu cus , so called from its habit of balancing the body as if on a pivot. The corresponding species in the United States, T. macular i us , is for the same reason called teeter tail or tip - up . Fiddler's fare, meat, drink, and money. Mi . Did your ladyship play? Lady Sm . Yes, and won; so I came off with fiddler's fare, meat, drink, and money. Swift , Polite Conversation, iii. Fiddler's green, a name given by sailors to their dance houses and other places of frolic on shore; sailors' para fidge Those degenerate arts and shifts, whereby many counsellors and governors gain both favour with their masters and estimation with the vulgar, deserve no better name than fiddling , being things rather pleasing for the time, and graceful to themselves only, than tending to the weal and advancement of the State. Bacon, True Greatne of Kingdoms and Estates (ed. 1887). fiddling (fid'ling), p. a. [Ppr. of fiddle, v.] Trifling; trivial; fu ily busy with nothing. Good cooks cannot abide what they justly call fiddling work, where abundance of time is spent, and little done. Swift , Directions to Servants, ii. Fidei Defensor (fid'e-i de-fen'sôr). [L.: fidei, gen. of fides, faith; defensor, defender.] Defender of the Faith. See defender.