Relating to a slow, cautious strategy that avoids direct confrontation, or relating to the Fabian Society (a socialist organization).
From Fabius Maximus, a Roman general who used delaying tactics against Hannibal in the Second Punic War (218-201 BC). The English adjective 'Fabian' was popularized in the late 1800s when the Fabian Society adopted the name to describe their gradual approach to social reform.
The Fabian Society, founded in 1884, deliberately chose the name of a Roman general known for patience and delay — it was their way of arguing that socialism would arrive through slow education and democratic processes rather than violent revolution, and this calculated word choice actually helped shape the entire trajectory of British left-wing politics away from Marxism.
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