English
fiction
Fiction comes from Middle English ficcioun, from Old French ficcion, from Latin fictiō ‘a making, feigning’, from fingō ‘to form’.
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEfingō‘to form, devise, feign’
- Latin, derivedc. 75 BCE–200 CEfictiō‘a making; a feigning’
- Old Frenchc. 842–1400ficcion‘dissimulation, invention’
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500ficcioun‘invention, fabrication’
- Englishearliest quotation 1801fiction
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed
Lineage
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEfingō‘to form, devise, feign’
- Latin, derivedc. 75 BCE–200 CEfictiō‘a making; a feigning’
- Old Frenchc. 842–1400ficcion‘dissimulation, invention’
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500ficcioun‘invention, fabrication’
- Englishearliest quotation 1801fiction
Earliest quotation: 1801, Rev. John Moir: “The transitory objects of sense, and most romantic fictions…”
Linked words
through Proto-Indo-European *dʰeyǵʰ- ‘to form, to shape’
lady, figure, paradise, dairy, dough, faint, dey, 27 more
through Latin fingō ‘to form, mold, shape, devise, feign’
Today it means
noun Literary type using invented or imaginative writing, instead of real facts, usually written as prose.
Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.
Etymograph / Latin fingō / fiction