Fabulous (pronounced fab-yuh-luhs)
(1) Exceptionally good or unusual, wonderful or superb; fashionable,
glamorous (which pedants insist is informal but it’s long been the standard
meaning).
(2) Almost impossible to believe; incredible.
(3) In slang or as a euphemism, gay or pertaining to gay
people; camp, effeminate ("a fabulousity" suggested as a collective noun for gay men but it never caught on) .
(4) In slang, fashionable, glamorous.
(5) Of or about fables; stories wholly or substantially
of the imaginary and known of through myth or legend; something in the record
known to be unhistorical.
Circa 1550: From the Late Middle English fabulous & fabulose, from the Latin fābulōsus
(celebrated in fable; rich in myth), the construct being fābul(a) (a story, a tale)
+ -ōsus (the adjectival suffix). The –ōsus suffix (familiar in English as –ous) was from Classical Latin from -ōnt-to-s from -o-wont-to -s, the latter form a combination of two primitive Indo-European suffixes: -went & -wont. Related to these were –entus and the Ancient Greek -εις (-eis) and all were used to form adjectives from nouns. In Latin, -ōsus was added to a noun to form an adjective indicating an abundance of that noun. As a literary genre (and
some fables came from oral traditions) fables were stories told usually to make
some moral point or illustrate the consequences of one’s actions and while they
could sometimes involve fantastical creatures like winged stallions or
unicorns, sometimes they involved fictional characters who were mere flesh
& blood and even a multi-volume, epic-length novel like Don Quixote
(1605-1615) by Miguel de Cervantes circa 1547–1616) can be thought a fable. Fabulous is an adjective, fabulousness &
fabulosity are nouns and fabulously is an adverb; the use is the plural is rare
but both fabulousnesses & fabulosities exist. There is some evidence of use in the gay
community of fabulous as a (non-standard) noun, sometime in the form “uber-fabulous”
although that construction is also used generally as an adjective of especial
emphasis.
Looking fabulous: Lindsay Lohan Fabulous magazine, August 2010.
The original sense was “of or pertaining to fable” and dates from the 1550s.
The now familiar meaning shift began as
early as the turn of the seventeenth centuries when the word was recorded to
convey the sense of “incredible” which soon extended to “enormous, immense;
amazing” and by the mid-twentieth century it was used almost exclusively to
mean “marvelous; wonderful, superb”. The
clipping to create the slang “fab” was in used by at least 1957 and use spiked
after 1963 when the alliterative “fab four” was used to describe the pop group,
The Beatles. When in 1965 revising Henry Fowler’s
(1858–1933), A Dictionary of Modern
English Usage (1926), Sir Ernest Gowers (1880–1966) maintained his predecessor’s
disapproval of much that was a bit too modern, noting that correctly fabulous meant
“…mythical, legendary, but was long ago
extended to do duty as an adjective for something that is real but so
astonishing that you might not think it was legendary if you did not know
better.”, adding that it had “…become
fabulously popular as a term of eulogy or allure.” He seemed though to suspect it might be a “fad
word”, noting it and its contracted forms “fab” & “fabs”, like “fantastic”,
were perhaps the latest “…in that long
list of words which boys and girls use for a time to express high commendation
and then get tired of, such as, to go no farther back than the present century,
topping, spiffing, ripping, wizard, super, posh, smashing.” Decades on however, fabulous seems to have endured
in its contemporary uses and even the portmanteau adjective fantabulous (the
construct being fanta(stic) + (fa)bulous) has survived in its niche. Fabulous probably gained a new lease of life
when it was in the late 1960s picked up by the gay community which has used it
even as a noun and it remains an essential element in the camp vocabulary. Unless it’s between scholars, those wishing
to convey the original meaning should probably use terms such as “fabled” or “mythological”
rather than fabulous and even “legendary” can be ambiguous because it’s now often
used to mean something like “famous” or “very well-known”.
Lindsay Lohan in an unusual cage cutout top, the lines assuming or relaxing from the orthogonal as the body moves (maybe an instance of "a shifting semiorthogonal"), The World's First Fabulous Fund Fair in aid of the Naked Heart Foundation, The Roundhouse, London, February 2015. An opportunity was missed by not adding a sympathetic clutch purse.
George W Bush, Condoleezza Rice & Colin Powell.
The
phrase “the fabulous invalid” refers to live theater & stage productions
generally, the use derived from a 1938 stage play of that name by George S Kaufman
(1889-1961) and Moss Hart (1904-1961) which traced the that follows the seesawing
fortunes of a fictitious Broadway theater between 1900-1930. In a touching irony, while the play was
barely a modest success and not highly regarded by its authors, the title has
endured as a synonym for the theatre. George
W Bush (George XLIII, b 1946; US president 2001-2009) who (admittedly
unwittingly) contributed more than most to coining new words & novel
grammatical structures, probably wasn’t deliberately alluding the original meaning
of fabulous when he used it to describe the performance of his first foreign
minister, Colin Powell (1937–2021; US secretary of state 2001-2005) but if
considered thus it certainly reflected his view that the general’s favorable
public image reflected more myth than reality and he’d prefer a secretary of
state who both ticked a few boxes and was more attuned to his brutish world-view. In Dr Condoleezza Rice (b 1954; US secretary
of state 2005-2009) he certainly got that but in the run-up to the invasion of
Iraq, whatever might have been his better judgment, the general did his job
because, as Field Marshall Wilhelm Keitel (1882–1946; head of Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW), the Nazi
armed forces high command) put it at the Nuremberg Trial (1645-1946): “For a soldier, orders are orders.” His flirtation with politics is a fable and story
of Condoleezza Rice’s career in government even more so: a cautionary tale of what
can happen when a nice young lady from a good family gets mixed up with an
unsavory crowd (Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld et al).
White House transcript of press conference assembled when
the president met with Colin Powell and Richard Armitage (b 1945; US deputy
secretary of state 2001-2005) at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, Wednesday, 6
August 2003:
THE PRESIDENT: First, it's been my real privilege and
honor to welcome the Secretary of State back to Crawford. He and Dick Armitage came, and we spent yesterday evening
and this morning talking about our country's desire to promote peace and
freedom, our obligations as a prosperous and strong nation to help the less
fortunate. And we had a good strategy session, and now we're about to go out
and brand some cows -- well, not exactly. (Laughter)
QUESTION: Sir,
you've seen the report that Secretary Powell and Secretary Armitage are going
to leave at the end of this administration. Do you expect them to stay on if
there is a second Bush administration? Would you like them to?
THE PRESIDENT: Well,
first things first, we hope there is a second Bush administration. And I will
work hard to convince the American people that their confidence in me is
justified. And we'll deal with it at the right time. Listen, this guy has done a fabulous job.
Washington, particularly in August, is a dangerous period -- a dangerous time,
because there's a lot of speculation. And all I can tell you is, the man flies
to Crawford and we spend a good 24 hours talking about how we're going to work
together to make the world a better place.
QUESTION: But, Mr.
President, you said, we'll deal with it…
THE PRESIDENT: Yes,
Elizabeth.
QUESTION: We'll
deal with it at the right time. That isn't "yes".
THE PRESIDENT: Deal
with what at the right time?
QUESTION: With
whether Secretary Powell will serve in a second term. Is that, "yes"
or "no"? I mean, are you going to offer him a spot in the second
term?
SECRETARY POWELL: I
don't have a term. I serve the President. (Laughter)
QUESTION: No, but
the President…
THE PRESIDENT: Elizabeth,
look, first things first, and that is, we've got a year-and-a-while during my
first term to make the world a more peaceful place and we'll deal with it. Washington loves speculation. Clearly, you love
speculation. You love it. You love to speculate about…
QUESTION: It wasn't my story. (Laughter.)
THE PRESIDENT: Let
me finish, please; let me finish. You love to speculate about whether so-and-so
is going to be a part of the administration or not. And I understand the game.
But I have got to do my job, and I'm going to do it. And I'm going to do it
with the Secretary of State. And the fact that he is here in Crawford, Texas,
talking about issues of importance, should say loud and clear to the American
people that he's completely engaged in doing what he needs to do, and that is,
serve as a great Secretary of State.
QUESTION: Do you
want to serve more than four years, Mr. Secretary?
SECRETARY POWELL: I
serve at the pleasure of the President, and this is all August speculation with
no basis in fact. There was no basis for this story to begin with, and we're
doing our jobs together.
THE PRESIDENT: All
right. We're going to get a burger. Thank you.
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