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n. The act of feigning, inventing, or imagining; as, by a mere fiction of the mind. That which is feigned, invented, or imagined; especially, a feigned or invented story, whether oral or written. Hence: A story told in order to deceive; a fabrication; - opposed to fact, or reality. In law, a contrived condition or situation; the simulation of a status or condition with the purpose of accomplishing justice. Fictitious literature; comprehensively, all works of imagination; specifically, novels and romances. (Law) An assumption of a possible thing as a fact, irrespective of the question of its truth. Any like assumption made for convenience, as for passing more rapidly over what is not disputed, and arriving at points really at issue.
Syn. - Fabrication; invention; fable; falsehood. - Fiction, Fabrication. Fiction is opposed to what is real; fabrication to what is true. Fiction is designed commonly to amuse, and sometimes to instruct; a fabrication is always intended to mislead and deceive. In the novels of Sir Walter Scott we have fiction of the highest order. The poems of Ossian, so called, were chiefly fabrications by Macpherson.
