Anecdote vs. Fable

An anecdote is a brief, revealing account of an individual person or an incident: "a story with a point," such as to communicate an abstract idea about a person, place, or thing through the concrete details of a short narrative or to characterize by delineating a specific quirk or trait. Occasionally humorous, anecdotes differ from jokes because their primary purpose is not simply to provoke laughter but to reveal a truth more general than the brief tale itself.Anecdotes may be real or fictional; the anecdotal digression is a common feature of literary works and even oral anecdotes typically involve subtle exaggeration and dramatic shape designed to entertain the listener.

Fable is a literary genre: a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, legendary creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature that are anthropomorphized, and that illustrates or leads to a particular moral lesson (a "moral"), which may at the end be added explicitly as a concise maxim or saying. A fable differs from a parable in that the latter excludes animals, plants, inanimate objects, and forces of nature as actors that assume speech or other powers of humankind.

a short amusing or interesting story about a real incident or person

A usually short narrative making an edifying or cautionary point and often employing as characters animals that speak and act like humans.

A short account of an interesting or humorous incident.

A story about legendary persons and exploits.

pl. an·ec·dotes or an·ec·do·ta (-dōtə) Secret or hitherto undivulged particulars of history or biography.

A falsehood; a lie.

A short account of a real incident or person, often humorous or interesting.

To recount as if true.

An account which supports an argument, but which is not supported by scientific or statistical analysis.

To compose fables.

A previously untold secret account of an incident.

A fictitious narrative intended to enforce some useful truth or precept, usually with animals, etc. as characters; an apologue. Prototypically, Aesop's Fables.

(ambitransitive) To tell anecdotes (about).

Any story told to excite wonder; common talk; the theme of talk.

Unpublished narratives.

Fiction; untruth; falsehood.

A particular or detached incident or fact of an interesting nature; a biographical incident or fragment; a single passage of private life.

The plot, story, or connected series of events forming the subject of an epic or dramatic poem.

short account of an incident (especially a biographical one)

To compose fables; hence, to write or speak fiction; to write or utter what is not true.

To make up; to devise, and speak of, as true or real; to tell of falsely; to recount in the form of a fable.

A Feigned story or tale, intended to instruct or amuse; a fictitious narration intended to enforce some useful truth or precept; an apologue. See the Note under Apologue.

The plot, story, or connected series of events, forming the subject of an epic or dramatic poem.

Any story told to excite wonder; common talk; the theme of talk.

Fiction; untruth; falsehood.

To compose fables; hence, to write or speak fiction ; to write or utter what is not true.

To feign; to invent; to devise, and speak of, as true or real; to tell of falsely.

a deliberately false or improbable account

a short moral story (often with animal characters)

a story about mythical or supernatural beings or events