A parable is a brief, succinct story, in prose or verse, that illustrates a moral or religious lesson. It differs from a fable in that fables use animals, plants, inanimate objects, and forces of nature as actors while parables generally are stories featuring human actors or agents.
Some scholars of the New Testament use the term "parable" only to refer to the parables of Jesus, although that is not a common restriction of the term.
The word "parable" comes from the Greek "παραβολή" (parabolē), the name given by Greek rhetoricians to any fictive illustration in the form of a brief narrative. Later it came to mean a fictitious narrative, generally referring to something that might naturally occur, by which spiritual and moral matters might be conveyed.
Examples of parable are Jesus of Nazareth's "Parable of the Prodigal Son" and Ignacy Krasicki's "The Blind Man and the Lame."
A parable is one of the simplest of narratives. It sketches a setting, describes an action, and shows the results. It often involves a character facing a moral dilemma, or making a questionable decision and then suffering the consequences of that choice. As with a fable, a parable generally relates a single, simple, consistent action, without extraneous detail or distracting circumstances. Many folktales could be viewed as extended parables.
The prototypical parable differs from the apologue in that it is a realistic story that seems inherently probable and takes place in a familiar setting of life.
Many fairy tales could be viewed as extended parables, except for their magical settings.
A parable is like a metaphor that has been extended to form a brief, coherent fiction. Unlike the situation with a simile, a parable's parallel meaning is unspoken and implicit, though not ordinarily secret.