Meaning

noun a short moral story (often with animal characters)

noun a visible symbol representing an abstract idea

noun an expressive style that uses fictional characters and events to describe some subject by suggestive resemblances; an extended metaphor

originThe noun is derived from Late Middle English allegorie (“symbolic interpretation; symbolism; (Christianity) one of the four methods of interpreting the Bible”) + English -y (suffix forming abstract nouns denoting a condition, quality, or state). Allegorie is borrowed from Anglo-Norman allegorie and Middle French allegorie (“narrative with a hidden meaning; such a meaning or its interpretation”)…

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0