And thereby hangs a tale

Cultural

An expression, taken from As You Like It, by William Shakespeare, that means roughly “There's a real story behind this.” It is commonly used by someone who is about to give the background of an interesting object, incident, or idea: “The colonel remarked, ‘See that umbrella over the mantelpiece? It saved my life during the war, and thereby hangs a tale.’”

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot; And thereby hangs a tale.

From Time Magazine Archive

And "thereby hangs a tale" which we have next to tell.

From Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) The Romance of Reality by Morris, Charles

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023