1
a
: something invented by the imagination or feigned
specifically
: an invented story
… I'd found out that the story of the ailing son was pure fiction. —
Andrew A. Rooney
Andrew A. Rooney
b
: fictitious literature (such as novels or short stories)
was renowned as a writer of fiction
c
: a work of fiction
2
a
: an assumption of a possibility as a fact irrespective of the question of its truth
a legal fiction
b
: a useful illusion or pretense
it was only a fiction of independence his mother gave him; he was almost totally under her power—G. A. Wagner
G. A. Wagner3
: the action of feigning or of creating with the imagination
She engaged in fiction to escape painful realities.
Examples of fiction in a Sentence
She believes the fiction that crime rates are up.
most stories about famous outlaws of the Old West are fictions that have little or nothing to do with fact
Recent Examples on the Web
No wonder, perhaps, that an audience for his remarkable body of fiction has not kept up with him—avid though his readership once was.
—Tyler Austin Harper, The Atlantic, 30 Oct. 2025
His writing covers technology, sustainability, geopolitics, and occasionally fiction.
—Kaif Shaikh, Interesting Engineering, 30 Oct. 2025
Personal remembrance becomes interwoven with political fiction, historical fact, and mythological distortion in the flood of stories that customarily follows a war.
—Elizabeth D. Samet, Foreign Affairs, 29 Oct. 2025
Kokuho, which takes its title and its novelistic sweep from a recent work of fiction about the rarefied world of kabuki, begins in the mid-1960s and ends 50 years later.
—Sheri Linden, HollywoodReporter, 29 Oct. 2025
See All Example Sentences for fiction
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Tyler Austin Harper, The Atlantic, 30 Oct. 2025
His writing covers technology, sustainability, geopolitics, and occasionally fiction.
—Kaif Shaikh, Interesting Engineering, 30 Oct. 2025
Personal remembrance becomes interwoven with political fiction, historical fact, and mythological distortion in the flood of stories that customarily follows a war.
—Elizabeth D. Samet, Foreign Affairs, 29 Oct. 2025
Kokuho, which takes its title and its novelistic sweep from a recent work of fiction about the rarefied world of kabuki, begins in the mid-1960s and ends 50 years later.
—Sheri Linden, HollywoodReporter, 29 Oct. 2025
See All Example Sentences for fiction
Cite this Entry
“Fiction.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fiction. Accessed 4 Nov. 2025.
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