Fabulous

I was doing my reading for uni, and I came across something that challenged something I thought I knew. I was reading an article by S.G. Oliphant from 1913 and he says the following:
"Pliny was an antiquarian, but he found no bubonine strix in his ancient sources. He found the Titinian strix,but rightly deemed it fabulous"(p. 145).
Now, I know it was written a long time ago, but I still found the fact a serious and respected scholar of antiquity would refer to a finding as "fabulous" so I looked the word up...
The word fabulous actually means:
1. of or like a fable, imagined, fictitious, or legendary;
2. hard to belief; incredible, astounding;
Did you know that??
I did not. And I use that word ALL the time. Perhaps it's time to find a new word to be my catch cry for all things that are... well, fabulous.