Derivation of the Word Fib

Can any of your readers suggest a proper derivation of this word? Old Bailey, to whom a reference would occasionally save many doubts and inquiries, connects it with "fable." Johnson says nothing as to the etymology, but explains it as "a cant word among children;" while, at the same time, he inserts it on the authority of Pope and Arbuthnot. In reading the works of that very learned and instructive author, Samuel Werenfels, I was struck with a passage in his *Diatribe de Meteoris*, p. 272. (Amstel. Wetstein, 1702), which seemed to furnish a probable solution of the question:—"Propter abusum n…