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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

tale.

A rehearsal of what has occurred; narrative; discourse; statement; history; story.

4 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈteɪl/Canada, General-American, Received-Pronunciation[ˈtʰeɪ̯ɫ]Canada, General-American, Received-Pronunciation/ˈtæɪ̯l/Australia, New-Zealand[ˈtæ̝ɪ̯ɫ]Australia, New-Zealand

  1. A rehearsal of what has occurred; narrative; discourse; statement; history; story.

    the Canterbury Tales

  2. A number told or counted off; a reckoning by count; an enumeration.

  3. The fraudulent opportunity presented by a confidence man to the mark or victim.

    slang

  4. An account of an asserted fact or circumstance; a rumour; a report, especially an idle or malicious story; a piece of gossip or slander; a lie.

    Don't tell tales!

  5. Number; tally; quota.

    obsolete

  6. Account; estimation; regard; heed.

    obsolete

  7. Speech; language.

    obsolete

  8. A speech; a statement; talk; conversation; discourse.

    obsolete

  9. A count; declaration.

    obsolete

  10. A number of things considered as an aggregate; sum.

    archaic · rare

  11. A report of any matter; a relation; a version.

    archaic · rare
Where this word comes from

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.

verb/ˈteɪl/Canada, General-American, Received-Pronunciation[ˈtʰeɪ̯ɫ]Canada, General-American, Received-Pronunciation/ˈtæɪ̯l/Australia, New-Zealand[ˈtæ̝ɪ̯ɫ]Australia, New-Zealand

  1. To speak; discourse; tell tales.

    dialectal · obsolete

  2. To reckon; consider (someone) to have something.

    Scotland · dialectal
Where this word comes from

From Middle English talen, from Old English talian (“to count, calculate, reckon”), from Proto-West Germanic *talōn, from Proto-Germanic *talōną (“to count”), from Proto-Indo-European *del- (“to count, reckon, aim, calculate, adjust”). Cognate with Dutch talen (“to long, care”), German zahlen (“to pay”), Swedish tala (“to speak, talk”), Icelandic tala (“to talk”).

noun/ˈteɪl/Canada, General-American, Received-Pronunciation[ˈtʰeɪ̯ɫ]Canada, General-American, Received-Pronunciation/ˈtæɪ̯l/Australia, New-Zealand[ˈtæ̝ɪ̯ɫ]Australia, New-Zealand

  1. Alternative form of tael.

    alt-of · alternative
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.