parable

parable — 名詞

1. a brief, made-up story whose surface plot is meant to point readers or listeners

1.名詞C1
釋義

寓言；比喻

用簡短虛構故事傳達道德或宗教教訓

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.

例句

Pastor Lin read the parable of the Good Samaritan to the children at Sunday school.

Pastor Lin 在主日學上對孩子們講了好撒馬利亞人的比喻故事。

the parable of [named story]

Ms. Alvarez asked her tenth-grade class to write a short parable about honesty.

Alvarez 老師要她十年級的學生寫一則關於誠實的短篇寓言。

a parable about [moral topic]

同義詞
  • 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.

常見錯誤

❌I read a funny parable about a talking fox.
✅I read a funny fable about a talking fox.
💡animal-character moral stories are fables; parables use human situations.
❌The novel is a 400-page parable of post-war Europe.
✅The novel is a 400-page allegory of post-war Europe.
💡long, fully symbolic works are allegories; parables are short.