tale

[teyl]

SEE MORE SYNONYMS FOR tale ON THESAURUS.COM

noun

a narrative that relates the details of some real or imaginary event, incident, or case; story: a tale about Lincoln's dog.

a literary composition having the form of such a narrative.

a falsehood; lie.

a rumor or piece of gossip, often malicious or untrue.

the full number or amount.

Archaic. enumeration; count.

Obsolete. talk; discourse.

Origin of tale

before 900; Middle English; Old English talu series, list, narrative, story; cognate with Dutch taal speech, language, German Zahl number, Old Norse tala number, speech. See tell¹

Can be confusedtail tale

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Related Words for tale

account, novel, myth, fable, anecdote, yarn, fiction, narrative, legend, rumor, report, romance, relation, saga, narration, prevarication, lie, falsehood, exaggeration, falsity

Examples from the Web for tale

Contemporary Examples of tale

Urban America is often portrayed as a tale of two kinds of places, those that “have it” and those who do not.
The Rustbelt Roars Back From the Dead
Joel Kotkin, Richey Piiparinen
December 7, 2014
Much of the fun of The Churchill Factor comes from the delightful and evervescent way Johnson tells the tale.
Boris Johnson’s Churchill Man Crush
Michael F. Bishop
November 22, 2014
The basic plot of The Virgin Spring, which was lifted off a Medieval tale, became the framework for The Last House on the Left.
Wes Craven's Favorite Scary Movies
Wes Craven
October 30, 2014
At its core, the tale revealed by the leak of what may be more than a million classified documents is a complicated one.
‘Citizenfour’ Is Mesmerizing (If You Don’t Mind the Omissions)
Michael Cohen
October 20, 2014
The result is a Shakespeare-imbued tale of the 20th century.
Book Bag: 5 Novels Shakespeare Sort of Wrote
Lois Leveen
October 10, 2014

Historical Examples of tale

To the end of the lives of the spectators, it was a tale of wonder.
The Armourer's Prentices
Charlotte M. Yonge
His great failing was that he exaggerated--no tale ever losing anything in his charge.
Explorations in Australia
John Forrest
Better live, to write your own tale than be the abject one to another.
Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 7, May 14, 1870
Various
Worst of all, almost, Mrs. Baker told the tale of my misdeeds to John.
The Bacillus of Beauty
Harriet Stark
It was always easy to get them to believe any tale which had gold in it.
The Trail Book
Mary Austin

British Dictionary definitions for tale

tale

noun

a report, narrative, or story

one of a group of short stories connected by an overall narrative framework

a malicious or meddlesome rumour or piece of gossipto bear tales against someone
(in combination)talebearer; taleteller

a fictitious or false statement

tell tales

to tell fanciful lies
to report malicious stories, trivial complaints, etc, esp to someone in authority

tell a tale to reveal something important

tell its own tale to be self-evident

archaic

a number; amount
computation or enumeration

an obsolete word for talk

Word Origin for tale

Old English talu list; related to Old Frisian tele talk, Old Saxon, Old Norse tala talk, number, Old High German zala number

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for tale

Old English talu "story, tale, the action of telling," from Proto-Germanic *talo (cf. Dutch taal "speech, language"), from PIE root *del- "to recount, count." The secondary English sense of "number, numerical reckoning" (c.1200) probably was the primary one in Germanic; cf. teller (see tell) and Old Frisian tale, Middle Dutch tal "number," Old Saxon tala "number," Old High German zala, German Zahl "number."

The ground sense of the Modern English word in its main meaning, then, might have been "an account of things in their due order." Related to talk and tell. Meaning "things divulged that were given secretly, gossip" is from mid-14c.; first record of talebearer "tattletale" is late 15c.

Idioms and Phrases with tale

tale

see old wives' tale; tall tale; tell tales; thereby hangs a tale.