Words & WritingGreek → English
Apologue
/ˈæpəlɒɡ/noun
A short moral fable, usually with animals or objects standing in for people.
The Greek roots
ἀπό
apó
from, off
λόγος
lógos
word, account
Literally: “a telling-off, a tale told”
The story of the word
Not to be confused with apology, which is ἀπολογία, a speech made in one's own defence. An ἀπόλογος was simply a narrative told out, and ancient scholars used the plural Ἀπόλογοι as the title for the four books of the Odyssey in which Odysseus tells his own adventures to the Phaeacians. English took the word from French in the sixteenth century and used it mainly for Aesop.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → French → English
- First recorded
- 16th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
apologydialogueprologueeulogylogic
In a sentence
The chapter about the ant and the sparrow is an apologue, and a fairly heavy-handed one.