fictionary
English
WOTD – 9 October 2015
Pronunciation
Adjective
fictionary (not comparable)
- Fictional.
- 1853, Mary Anna Needell, Ada Gresham, page 53:
- I used to spend my mornings in the large, deserted drawing-room, whose charm was not yet broken, inditing ardent letters, into which my whole soul undisguised, was breathed to an imaginary friend; or writing some fragmentary sketches of the life of some fictionary favourite of fortune, in whose fate I always foreshadowed my own.
- 1869, The Cornhill Magazine, Volume XIX: January to June, 1869, page 37:
- Lastly, there were not a few scholars who, discarding the idea that myths were purely fictionary, and admitting a basis of reality, yet found that basis not in historical occurrence but in natural phenomena.
- 1882, Journal of the British Archaeological Association, volume 38, page 53:
- Omitting, for the occasion, all thought of Anglo-Saxon literary remains, histories, chronicles, theological, fictionary, and scientific works, the entire number of documentary evidences, such as charters, wills, etc., of the Saxon period in England is very limited.
- 1907, Kemp Plummer Battle, History of the University of North Carolina: From its beginning to the death of President Swain, 1789-1868, volume 1, page 574:
- Showing a lady into a library in which were alcoves, the books being arranged by subjects, he said, "Now, Miss Mary, I will show you the concave[sic] of fictionary novels."'
Etymology 2
Blend of fiction + dictionary.
Alternative forms
- Fictionary
Noun
fictionary (countable and uncountable, plural fictionaries)
- A parlor game in which participants invent definitions for an unfamiliar word found in a dictionary, and as one person reads them out, the others try to guess which one is the correct definition.
- (countable, rare) A dictionary with contrived entries.
- 1980, Gyles Daubeney Brandreth, The Joy of Lex: How to Have Fun with 860,341,500 Words, New York: Morrow, →ISBN, page 269:
- Daffynitions appear in fictionaries, not dictionaries, and they add hidden dimensions to the words they describe.
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