tall tale

1. An exaggerated, unreliable story: “My uncle claims that he was raised in a drainage ditch, but it's just another of his tall tales.”

Idioms and Phrases

A fanciful or greatly exaggerated story, as in Some youngsters love tall tales about creatures from outer space coming to earth. This idiom uses tall in the sense of “exaggerated.” [Mid-1800s]

Example Sentences

He repeats the tall tales, and he sympathizes with their struggles with wanderlust and the challenge of finding civilian clothes that fit and are affordable.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

Most of the stories were tall tales and urban legends told to entertain or to score some popularity.

Read more on Salon

The spokesperson added: "We stand ready to annihilate Ms Pisciotta's tall tales before a jury − an exoneration so inevitable that even she, lost in her fog of fantasy, must surely see it coming."

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He delights in tall tales of a Barbary lion that has escaped Northern Africa and now roams the streets of Paris.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

But you have to wonder whether his mother told him a tall tale as a child to comfort him.

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