Fictional means invented for a story rather than real. A fictional character, a fictional town, purely fictional.
It is not the same as fictitious, which means falsely invented to deceive — a fictional detective is fine and a fictitious address is a lie. Novels carry a disclaimer that the characters are fictional because the law of defamation reaches into fiction.
1adjectivefictionalInvented for a story rather than real.
“The town in the novel is fictional, though it is based on the author's birthplace.”
fictional is a quality of invention.
Fiction plus -al, from Latin fictio, a making or feigning, from fingere, to shape or invent. Figure and feign are relatives.
Middle English
ficcioun
English
fiction
English, today
fictional
Built from
From fiction + -al. From fiction + -al. fiction comes from Middle English ficcioun. 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 lēasspell; see feign, feint, figment.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA