A person who writes or tells fables; a storyteller or someone skilled at creating tales (often implies exaggeration).
From fabula + -ist suffix (one who does something). Emerged in English in the 1600s, influenced by French fabuliste.
Fabulists were respected in ancient times—Aesop was THE fabulist—but the word now sometimes suggests someone who exaggerates, showing how truthfulness became attached to genre.
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