fabliau

Fabliau entered English from Old French fabliau, a noun used for a short comic narrative in verse. The Old French word is a diminutive form related to fable, from Latin fabula, "story" or "talk." Northern France used the term in the 12th and 13th centuries. From the start, the word named a specific kind of tale, not just any fiction.

By about 1150 to 1350, trouvères in places such as Arras composed fabliaux about tricksters, jealous husbands, greedy priests, and clever wives. These poems were brisk, earthy, and tightly plotted. The label fabliau belonged to that literary world in Old French. It was small in form but not mild in effect.

English adopted fabliau in the 19th century as a scholarly and literary term. It arrived when medieval French texts were being edited, translated, and classified with care. Writers used it to name the genre behind tales that resemble some of Chaucer's comic narratives, even when Chaucer himself did not use the word. The borrowing kept its French shape almost unchanged.

Today fabliau is still a genre word more than an everyday noun. It points to a medieval short tale built on comic realism, sexual intrigue, social inversion, and a neat trick at the end. The word has stayed close to its historical niche. Its path is unusually direct: from Latin story, to French little story, to English literary label.