fiction

Etymology

From Middle English ficcioun, from Old French ficcion (“dissimulation, ruse, invention”), from Latin fictiō (“a making, fashioning, a feigning, a rhetorical or legal fiction”), from fingō (“to form, mold, shape, devise, feign”). Displaced native Old English lēasspell (literally “false story”).

noun

1. (literature) Literary type using invented or imaginative writing, instead of real facts, usually written as prose.
   I am a great reader of fiction.
   the fiction section of the library
2. A verbal or written account that is not based on actual events (often intended to mislead).
   The company’s accounts contained a number of blatant fictions.
   The butler’s account of the crime was pure fiction.
   separate the fact from the fiction
   […] in view of the facts—and some fictions—recently circulated in this country about the general performance of high-powered diesel-hydraulics of B.R., […]. 1963 June, G. Freeman Allen, “The success of diesel-hydraulics on the German Federal Railway”, in Modern Railways, page 390
3. (law) A legal fiction.