- present participle of tell.
adjective
-
having a marked effect or impact
a telling blow
-
revealing
a telling smile
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of telling
Explanation
Something that's telling is either significant,or it reveals information. Getting twice as much allowance will have a telling effect on your ability to buy new books. When it comes to economics, a telling indicator of a country's state is how much money its citizens spend each month. And you can see that a movie has had a telling effect on its audience if it leaves them all weeping. If you reveal something without meaning to, that's telling as well: "The look on his face was telling." This adjective dates from the mid-1800s, from the verb tell and its sense of "to reveal or disclose."
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.
"This shows why strategies like telling someone to think of something else don't really help, because they don't really have the behavior under conscious control."
From Science Daily • Jul. 12, 2026
“I met another attorney up. There was telling me that what I was doing was unethical,” Henderson texted Hendizadeh after meeting Orchid on Feb. 4, 2024.
From Los Angeles Times • Jul. 12, 2026
"It's better to choose someone...who knows what they're signing," Lima recalled telling the couple.
From Barron's • Jul. 12, 2026
Researchers found that by exposing people to images, both AI and real, then telling them which was which, they can get significantly better at it - even in the space of an hour or so.
From BBC • Jul. 11, 2026
Without telling Gingersnipes the truth about her destiny—and, perhaps most exciting of all, the truth about his.
From "The Undead Fox of Deadwood Forest" by Aubrey Hartman
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
