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tale

Pronunciation: /ˈteɪl/

The English word “tale” has 13 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. A rehearsal of what has occurred; narrative; discourse; statement; history; story.
  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.
  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.
  5. Number; tally; quota.
  6. Account; estimation; regard; heed.
  7. Speech; language.
  8. A speech; a statement; talk; conversation; discourse.
  9. A count; declaration.
  10. A number of things considered as an aggregate; sum.
  11. A report of any matter; a relation; a version.

verb

  1. To speak; discourse; tell tales.
  2. To reckon; consider (someone) to have something.

Etymology

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,…

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.