English Explanatory Dictionary

tale

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun
  1. A rehearsal of what has occurred; narrative; discourse; statement; history; story.
  2. A number told or counted off; a reckoning by count; an enumeration.
  3. The fraudulent opportunity presented by a confidence man to the mark or victim.
  4. An account of an asserted fact or circumstance; a rumour; a report, especially an idle or malicious story; a piece of gossip or slander; a lie.
  5. Number; tally; quota.
  6. Account; estimation; regard; heed.
  7. Speech; language.
  8. A speech; a statement; talk; conversation; discourse.
  9. A count; declaration.
  10. A number of things considered as an aggregate; sum.
  11. A report of any matter; a relation; a version.
verb
  1. To speak; discourse; tell tales.
  2. To reckon; consider (someone) to have something.
noun
  1. Alternative form of tael.

Pronunciation

tāl /ˈteːl/ /ˈteɪl/ En-au-tale.ogg

Word forms

tale tales taling taled

Etymology

From Middle English tale, from Old English talu (“tale, series, calculation”), from Proto-West Germanic *talu, from Proto-Germanic *talō (“calculation, number”), from Proto-Indo-European *del- (“to reckon, count”). Cognate with West Frisian taal (“speech, language”), Dutch taal (“language, speech”), German Zahl (“number, figure”), Danish tale (“speech”), Icelandic tala (“speech, talk, discourse, number, figure”), Latin dolus (“guile, deceit, fraud”), Ancient Greek δόλος (dólos, “wile, bait”), Albanian ndjell (“to lure”), Northern Kurdish til (“finger”), Old Armenian տող (toł, “row”). Related to tell, talk.

Related words

pourquoi tale

Derived words

aftertale Banbury tale betall blab-tale blabtale carrytale cautionary tale dead men tell no tales fairy-tale fairy-tale ending fairy tale fairytale fish tale folk tale folktale foretale frame tale live to tell the tale midtale Milesian tale morality tale old wives' tale shaggy-dog tale shaggy dog tale spin a tale taleable tale bearer tale-bearer talebearer talebearing talebook talecarrier taleful taleless talelike talemonger tale of the tape tale of woe talesman tale-teller taleteller taletelling tall tale tattletale tell its own tale telltale tell tale tell-tale telltale compass tell tales tell tales out of school tell-tale-tit tenmantale thereby hangs a tale traveller's tale taler
This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.
Back to search All on T Russian dictionary Dahl dictionary