fiction

novel, romance, fiction, story, fable, tale

这些名词均含“小说、故事”之意。
novel: 指任何有情节、人物、对白的虚构长篇散文体故事。
romance: 系novel早期的代用词，泛指具有强烈神话和传奇色彩的故事，现指爱情故事。
fiction: 指部分或全部虚构的短篇、中篇、长篇小说，也指传奇故事，是小说的总称。
story: 指篇幅较短，常包含一系列情节或事件，口述或书写成文的故事。
fable: 指短小而寓有教育意义的虚构故事，故事的主人公多为拟人化的动物或非动物之类，也作传说解。
tale: 常可与story换用，指以事实为中心作叙述的故事，也指古代流传下来的传说故事或神话故事。

名词 fiction:

1. a literary work based on the imagination and not necessarily on fact
2. a deliberately false or improbable account
   同义词：fabrication, fable

1. Real life is sometimes stranger than fiction.
   现实生活有时比小说还离奇。
2. It's important to distinguish fact from fiction.
   把现实与虚构区分开来是很重要的。
3. His new novel is a must for all lovers of crime fiction.
   他的新小说是罪案小说爱好者必须一读的。
4. This book intermingled fact with fiction.
   这本书事实和虚构情节交织。
5. Anna was reading a piece of science fiction and completely lost in the book.
   安娜在读一部科幻小说，完全沉浸在书中。
6. She makes use of people she meets as raw material for her fiction.
   她把她所遇见的人们作为她创作小说的素材。
7. His account of the crime was a complete fiction.
   他所讲述的那种罪刑完全是虚构的。
8. I like to read science fiction.
   我喜欢读科幻小说。

fic.tion

n.Abbr. fict.（名词）缩写 fict.

An imaginative creation or a pretense that does not represent actuality but has been invented.
捏造，想象：虚构的作品或托词，并不代表是真实的，而是被编造出来的
The act of inventing such a creation or pretense.
虚构，捏造：虚构作品或捏造借口的行为
A lie.
谎话

A literary work whose content is produced by the imagination and is not necessarily based on fact.
小说：其内容是想象出来的而不一定是以事实为基础的文学作品
The category of literature comprising works of this kind, including novels and short stories.
小说类：由这类文学作品，包括小说和短篇小故事
Law Something untrue that is intentionally represented as true by the narrator.
【法律】 假定：叙述者故意的把真实的说成不真实的事实

来源：
Middle English ficcioun
中古英语 ficcioun
from Old French fiction
源自 古法语 fiction
from Latin fictiô fictiôn-
源自 拉丁语 fictiô fictiôn-
from fictus [past participle of] fingere [to form] * see dheigh-
源自 fictus [] fingere的过去分词 [形成] *参见 dheigh-

【引伸】
fic.tional
adj.（形容词）
fic.tional.ity
fic.tionally
adv.（副词）
<注释>.The latest fiction. to most people means the latest novels or storiesrather than the most recently invented pretense or latest lie.All three senses of the wordfiction point back to its source, Latin fictiô, .the action of shaping, a feigning, that which is feigned.. Fictiô in turn was derived from fingere, .to make by shaping, feign, make up or invent a story or excuse.. Our first instance offiction, recorded in a work composed around 42, was used in the sense .invention of the mind, that which is imaginatively invented..It is not a far step from this meaning to the sense .imaginative literature,. first recorded in 599.
.最新的小说.对大多数人来说是指最新的小说或故事，而不是指最新捏造出的谎言。Fiction 这一词的所有的三个意思都追溯到拉丁语中的词源 fictio ，.假装，伪造，做假的行为。. 反过来fictio 则起源于 fingere， .捏造一个故事或编一个借口.。 我们可以在一部写于42年前后的作品中找到fiction 的第一个例子， 文中所用的意思是.头脑中的虚构，是充满想象的虚构的.。这一意思已经和599年首次记录的.虚构的文学作品.这层意思相去不远了