GRAPH-WIDE SEARCH
MEASURE THE GRAPH ↗NOT JUST A DICTIONARY LOOKUP
6 EVIDENCE COLLECTIONSSEARCH
THE GRAPH.
Find a modern word—or search sideways through reconstructed roots, historical forms, meanings, languages, scholars, sources, claims, disputes, and witnesses.
011
MODERN ENTRY POINTS
WORD DOSSIERS
023
ATTESTED / RECONSTRUCTED / BOUNDARY
HISTORICAL FORMS
●
Present-Day English / Indo-European
fiction
invented narrative; imaginative creation; pretense; legal assumption
- DATE
- 14th century–today
- MATCH
- exact historical form
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Middle French / Indo-European
fiction
invention; feigning; pretense
- DATE
- Middle French
- MATCH
- exact historical form
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Latin / Indo-European
fictiō
action of shaping or molding; feigning; pretense; legal fiction
- DATE
- Latin antiquity
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
034
WHERE INTERPRETATION IS TESTED
CLAIMS & DISPUTES
SCHOLARLY DISPUTES / 3
resolvedestablishedexact word
Did fiction originally mean only an invented story?
No. Latin fictiō includes shaping or molding, feigning, pretense, and legal fiction; Middle English begins with invention of the mind.
resolvedestablishedexact word
Does fiction descend from figure?
No. Latin fictiō and figūra are sibling formations in the fingere and *dheigh- family; neither English word is the parent of the other.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Did legend originally mean a false story?
No. Medieval Latin legenda meant things to be read. The uncertainty or fictionality of a traditional story is a later development.
CONTRARIAN TRUTHS / 1
RANK 133GRADE Aexact ranked word
Fiction is historically something shaped.
Latin fictiō names shaping or molding, feigning, and pretense before English literary narrative becomes one major center.
041
BOOKS / DICTIONARIES / ARTICLES / DATABASES
SOURCES
051
FIRST USES & HISTORICAL OBJECTS
ATTESTATION WITNESSES
06
SEARCH IS DISCOVERY, NOT PROOF
EVERY RESULT OPENS A PERMANENT EVIDENCE RECORD.
Matching text only locates a record. It does not raise confidence, settle a dispute, establish cognacy, or turn a source report into direct inspection. Follow the result into its citations and editorial limits.