fictional — English Dictionary

Adjective

1. Invented, as opposed to real.

   Synonyms

   imaginaryimaginedfictitiousfake

   Broader terms

   unreal

   Examples

   Near-synonyms: fictitious, fake

   Romeo and Juliet are fictional characters.

   More examples (2)

   The janitor's account of the crime turned out to be entirely fictional.

   Nineteen Eighty-Four was written in 1949. Its nightmarish fictional world is now 37 years in the past, so one might reasonably conclude that Orwell was far too pessimistic, but his great book was less a prediction than a warning, and above all an analysis of the totalitarian mentality.

2. Containing invented elements.

   Examples

   The Simpsons is a fictional television show.

   More examples (2)

   Including both factual and fictional books would have reduced the value of the study; it would have made the content too heterogeneous for the drawing of significant conclusions.

   While the jury saw the Sopranos episode in which Adriana was killed for cooperating with the FBI, Mr. Ferro argued to the jury the difference between the fictional TV show from the reality of this trial.

3. Occurring in fiction.

   Examples

   More examples (1)

   Tunnels often feature in fictional journeys, so I will end with quotations from a fairly recent novel, Howard Spring's "Fame is the Spur", published in 1940, in which there is a journey from Manchester to Bradford via the Calder Valley route: "Ay, we're going through Todmorden. We'll soon be in t' tunnel, and when we get to t' other end we'll be in Yorkshire," and "Ah think this is t' filthiest tunnel in t' world."

4. Concerning fiction (as a genre or medium): having to do with fiction; specific to fiction.

   Synonyms

   fiction

   Examples

   fictional and nonfictional conventions

   fictional conventions

   More examples (4)

   fictional writers

   How well have American writers acquitted themselves as teachers and interpreters? A glance at the following names of our earliest authors will be gratifying: […] [long list of American authors] […], and that longer list of spirited writers who during the last forty years have literally deluged their generation with all that is good and bad in fictional literature. Their names and works, still so recent, are in the minds of present-day readers and need not be set forth here. While all the American authors indicated in the foregoing list were not novelists, or purely fictional writers, practically all of them come within that class of interpreters of whom we have been writing.

   Because Fielding was the best theorizer of the three—or possibly because he was the most "normal" person, his principles were followed fairly closely by fictional writers throughout the first half of the Nineteenth Century, so that in the three major writers of fiction of that period we find a surprising similarity of method and of manner.

   Let us consider the fourth rule's pertinence to writers of fiction. First, are fictional writers somehow intrinsically insincere? Do they not mean what they say? Did we ever hear Faulkner or Marquez or Toni Morrison say, 'I take that all back. I didn't mean it. I was being insincere'? Couldn't one make the case that, given that fiction writers as well as other artists carry the burden of creating a wholly imaginary realm, they must be profoundly sincere and believe deeply in the truth of the world they are creating? Second, do not writers ('speakers') commit themselves 'to a belief in the truth of the expressed proposition'?

Adjective

1. related to or involving literary fiction

   Antonyms

   nonfictional

   Examples

   clever fictional devices

   a fictional treatment of the train robbery

2. formed or conceived by the imagination

   Synonyms

   fabricatedfanciedfictitious

   Examples

   a fabricated excuse for his absence

   a fancied wrong

   More examples (1)

   a fictional character