parable
parable — noun
1. a brief, made-up story whose surface plot is meant to point readers or listeners
a brief, made-up story whose surface plot is meant to point readers or listeners toward a deeper lesson about how to live, what to believe, or how to treat others — often, but not always, drawn from religious teaching, as with the stories Jesus tells in the Bible about a kind stranger or a returning son.
Pastor Lin read the parable of the Good Samaritan to the children at Sunday school.
the parable of [named story]
Ms. Alvarez asked her tenth-grade class to write a short parable about honesty.
a parable about [moral topic]
Many critics read the film as a modern parable about greed in Silicon Valley.
Father Kim used the parable of the Prodigal Son to comfort a grieving father.
Grandma Wei told the twins a quiet parable about a farmer who shared his last bowl of rice.
- fable
shorter, usually animal characters, with an explicit moral tag
- allegory
longer extended symbolic narrative; every element maps to a hidden meaning
- moral tale
neutral plain-English phrase; less religious, less literary
- exemplum
technical/literary term for a short illustrative story used in a sermon
文法句型
a parable about [topic]
the parable of [name/event]
用法筆記
Distinguish from 'fable' and 'allegory'. A fable usually features talking animals and ends with a stated moral; a parable uses ordinary human characters and leaves the listener to draw the lesson. An allegory is typically a longer work where every element stands for something else; a parable is short and often built around a single comparison.