parable

parable — noun

1. a brief, made-up story whose surface plot is meant to point readers or listeners

1.nounC1
Definition

a brief, made-up story whose surface plot is meant to point readers or listeners toward a deeper lesson about how to live, what to believe, or how to treat others — often, but not always, drawn from religious teaching, as with the stories Jesus tells in the Bible about a kind stranger or a returning son.

Example

Pastor Lin read the parable of the Good Samaritan to the children at Sunday school.

the parable of [named story]

Ms. Alvarez asked her tenth-grade class to write a short parable about honesty.

a parable about [moral topic]

Common collocations
  • tell a parable
  • read a parable
  • the parable of
  • a parable about
  • biblical parable
  • modern parable
Synonyms
  • fable

    shorter, usually animal characters, with an explicit moral tag

  • allegory

    longer extended symbolic narrative; every element maps to a hidden meaning

  • moral tale

    neutral plain-English phrase; less religious, less literary

  • exemplum

    technical/literary term for a short illustrative story used in a sermon

Grammar Patterns

a parable about [topic]

the parable of [name/event]

Usage Note

Distinguish from 'fable' and 'allegory'. A fable usually features talking animals and ends with a stated moral; a parable uses ordinary human characters and leaves the listener to draw the lesson. An allegory is typically a longer work where every element stands for something else; a parable is short and often built around a single comparison.

Common Mistakes

I read a funny parable about a talking fox.
I read a funny fable about a talking fox.
animal-character moral stories are fables; parables use human situations.
The novel is a 400-page parable of post-war Europe.
The novel is a 400-page allegory of post-war Europe.
long, fully symbolic works are allegories; parables are short.

Word family

  • parabolic
    adjectiveC2
  • parabolically
    adverbC2

Synonym discussion

Sense: noun/1

All four are short narrative forms that carry meaning beyond the events on the page, but they pull apart on character, length, and intent. A parable uses everyday human characters in a believable setting and asks the listener to work out the moral or spiritual point themselves — Jesus's story of the Good Samaritan is the textbook case. A fable is shorter still, usually stars talking animals (the tortoise, the hare, the fox), and tags the lesson on at the end: 'slow and steady wins the race.' An allegory works on a larger canvas: a whole novel or poem in which each character, place, and event maps onto something else — Animal Farm as Stalin-era Russia. A myth, by contrast, explains origins or natural forces through gods and heroes and is usually treated as part of a culture's sacred history rather than as a teaching tool. Use 'parable' when the story is short, human, and points to one clear moral.

parable ↗fable ↗allegorymyth ↗

Common collocations

Nouns

  • biblical parable
  • modern parable
  • Gospel parable
  • Sunday-school parable

Phrases

  • tell a parable
  • read a parable
  • interpret a parable
  • the parable of the [name]

Prepositions

  • parable about
  • parable of
  • parable for

Etymology

GreekLatinOld FrenchMiddle EnglishEnglish

Borrowed into Middle English in the 1300s from Old French 'parabole', which came from Late Latin 'parabola' meaning 'comparison, illustrative story', itself from Greek 'parabolē' — literally a 'placing beside', from 'para-' ('beside') plus 'ballein' ('to throw'). The early Christian Church used the Greek word for the comparison-stories Jesus told, and that religious sense travelled into English with the word. The same Greek root also gave English the geometry term 'parabola', because the curve was first defined as one made by a particular slicing of a cone alongside its axis.