fiction

Founding-era definition · Webster's 1828 American Dictionary

FIC'TION, noun [Latin fictio, from fingo, to feign.] 1. The act of feigning, inventing or imagining; as, by the mere fiction of the mind. 2. That which is feigned, invented or imagined. The story is a fiction So also was the fiction of those golden apples kept by a dragon, taken from the serpent which tempted Eve.
Source: Webster's 1828 American Dictionary ↗ · public-domain · returned verbatim, no AI

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