FOLK TALE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does folk tale mean? 

• FOLK TALE (noun)
  The noun FOLK TALE has 1 sense:

1. a tale circulated by word of mouth among the common folk

  Familiarity information: FOLK TALE used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• FOLK TALE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A tale circulated by word of mouth among the common folk

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

folk tale; folktale

Hypernyms ("folk tale" is a kind of...):

narration; narrative; story; tale (a message that tells the particulars of an act or occurrence or course of events; presented in writing or drama or cinema or as a radio or television program)

Domain member category:

flying carpet ((Asian folktale) an imaginary carpet that will fly people anywhere they wish to go)

Instance hyponyms:

Arabian Nights; Arabian Nights' Entertainment; Thousand and One Nights (a collection of folktales in Arabic dating from the 10th century)

Holonyms ("folk tale" is a part of...):

folklore (the unwritten lore (stories and proverbs and riddles and songs) of a culture)

 Context examples 

But they were best (and universally) known for the collection of over two hundred folk tales they made from oral sources and published in two volumes of Nursery and Household Tales in 1812 and 1814.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)