Fiction

RELATED TERMS: (Of) Grammatography

In the early 15th century, ficcioun meant that which is invented or imagined in the mind. The word derived from the Old French ficcion, which meant dissimulation, ruse; or invention and fabrication in the 13th century. This, in turn derived directly from the Latin fictionem, meaning a fashioning or feigning. This is a noun of action from the past participle stem of fingere to shape, form, devise, feign. The original sense was to knead and form out of clay. 

The use of the term fiction to mean non-dramatic prose works of the imagination began in the 1590s. At first, this category often including plays and poems. The narrower sense of the part of literature comprising novels and short stories based on imagined scenes or characters was in use by early 19th century. The legal sense, i.e. fiction of law, arose in the 1580s. The related Latin words included the literal notion of worked by hand, as well as the figurative senses of invented in the mind; artificial, not natural. The Latin term fictilis means made of clay or earthen; while the term fictor means molder or sculptor but was also used of Ulysses as master of deceit. A fictum is a deception, falsehood, in short, a fiction.

If to fiction, Sara Ahmed conjectures, is to give shape and form, then fiction could be understood as giving character, whether or not that character is given an individual form.

Reference

Ahmed, S. (2011). Willful parts: problem characters or the problem of character. New Literary History, 42 (2), 231–253. Available from https://muse.jhu.edu/article/448716/pdf [Accessed 7 December 2016].

Harper, Douglas (2001-2016). Fiction. Online Etymology Dictionary. Available at http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=fiction. [Accessed 7 December 2016]