Link Centre Dictionary

tale

UK/ˈtel/ US/ˈteɪl/ common slang

noun

1.

a message that tells the particulars of an act or occurrence or course of events; presented in writing or drama or cinema or as a radio or television program

  • “his narrative was interesting”
  • “Disney”
Synonyms
2.

a trivial lie

  • “he told a fib about eating his spinach”
  • “how can I stop my child from telling stories?”
Synonyms

Origin

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.

Phrases

  • Banbury tale
  • cautionary tale
  • dead men tell no tales
  • fairy tale
  • fairy-tale ending
  • fish tale
  • folk tale
  • frame tale

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WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.