# fiction

Pronunciation: say "FIK-shuhn" /ˈfɪk.ʃən/

## Noun

1. A type of literature built from invented or imaginative writing rather than real facts, usually in prose form.
   - Simple: Stories made up from imagination instead of real events, usually written in prose.
   - _He writes fiction in the evenings and reports the news by day._
   - _The library keeps its fiction on shelves separate from history and biography._
2. An account, spoken or written, that is not based on real events and is often meant to mislead.
   - Simple: A made-up story told as if it were true, often to fool someone.
   - _Her alibi was a careful fiction designed to protect her brother._
   - _The company's glowing financial statements were largely fiction._
3. An assumption that a court accepts as true, regardless of whether it actually is, in order to apply a legal rule.
   - Simple: Something a court treats as true, even when it is not, so a rule can be used fairly.
   - _Through a long-standing fiction, the court regarded the corporation as a single legal person._
   - _The doctrine rests on a fiction that the adopted child was born to the family._

## Origin

From Middle English ficcioun, from Old French ficcion ("dissimulation, ruse, invention"), from Latin fictiō ("a making, fashioning, a feigning"), from fingō ("to form, mold, shape, devise, feign"). It displaced the native Old English lēasspell, literally "false story."

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/fiction (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).