abbreviation of First Family of Virginia, attested by 1847 (simple F.F., for first family but meaning Virginia, is from 1813).

1922, abbreviation of frequency modulation as a method of encoding information in radio waves by varying the frequency of the wave. As a method of broadcasting radio programs, it began in the late 1930s and was notable for superior noise reduction and the capability of broadcasting in stereo. As the chosen medium for broadcasting stereo rock music it became popular in the 1970s.

fourth note in Guidonian scale; see gamut. Used from 13c. in Old French. It represents the first syllable in Latin famulus.

1957, slang shortening of fabulous.

1902 from Peter Carl Fabergé (1846-1920), Russian jeweler.

"socialist," 1884, from Fabian Society, founded in Britain 1884, named for Quintus Fabius Maximus (surnamed Cunctator "the Delayer"), the cautious tactician who opposed Hannibal in the Second Punic War. The Fabians chose the name to draw a distinction between their slow-going tactics and those of anarchists and communists. The Latin gens name possibly is from faba "a bean" (see bean (n.)).

c. 1300, "falsehood, fictitious narrative; a lie, pretense," from Old French fable "story, fable, tale; drama, play, fiction; lie, falsehood" (12c.), from Latin fabula "story, story with a lesson, tale, narrative, account; the common talk, news," literally "that which is told," from fari "speak, tell" (from PIE root *bha- (2) "to speak, tell, say").

The restricted sense of "animal story" (early 14c.) comes from the popularity of Aesop's tales. In modern terms, "a short, comic tale making a moral point about human nature, usually through animal characters behaving in human ways" ["Oxford Dictionary of English Folklore"].

The fable which is naturally and truly composed, so as to satisfy the imagination, ere it addresses the understanding, beautiful though strange as a wild-flower, is to the wise man an apothegm, and admits of his most generous interpretation. When we read that Bacchus made the Tyrrhenian mariners mad, so that they leapt into the sea, mistaking it for a meadow full of flowers, and so became dolphins, we are not concerned about the historical truth of this, but rather a higher poetical truth. We seem to hear the music of a thought, and care not if the understanding be not gratified. [Thoreau, "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers"]

c. 1600, "unreal, invented," past-participle adjective from fable (v.) "to tell tales" (late 14c.), from Old French fabler "tell, narrate; chatter, boast," from Latin fabulari, from fabula (see fable). Meaning "celebrated in fable" is from 1706.

also fablemonger, "one who invents or repeats fables," 1670s, from fable (n.) + monger (n.).

late 15c. (Caxton), "a building," a sense now obsolete, from Old French fabrique (14c.), verbal noun from fabriquer (13c.), from Latin fabricare "to make, construct, fashion, build," from fabrica "workshop," also "an art, trade; a skillful production, structure, fabric," from faber "artisan who works in hard materials," from Proto-Italic *fafro-, from PIE *dhabh-, perhaps meaning "craftsman" (source also of Armenian darbin "smith," and possibly also Lithuanian dabà "nature, habit, character," dabnùs "smart, well-dressed, elegant;" Russian dobryj "good," Gothic gadob "it fits," Old English gedēfe "fitting;" also see daft).

The noun fabrica suggests the earlier existence of a feminine noun to which an adj. *fabriko- referred; maybe ars "art, craft." [de Vaan]

From 1630s as "a thing made; a structure of any kind." The sense in English has evolved via "manufactured material" (1753) to "textile, woven or felted cloth" (1791). Compare forge (n.) which is a doublet.