English
tell
see also: Tell
Pronunciation
  • (British, America) enPR: tĕl, IPA: /tɛl/, [tʰɛl], [tʰɛɫ]
Etymology 1

From Middle English tellen, from Old English tellan, from Proto-West Germanic *talljan, from Proto-Germanic *taljaną, *talzijaną, from Proto-Germanic *talą, *talǭ, from Proto-Indo-European *dol-.

Cognate with Saterland Frisian tälle, Western Frisian telle, Western Frisian fertelle, Dutch tellen and Dutch vertellen, Low German tellen, German zählen, Faroese telja. More at tale.

Verb

tell (tells, present participle telling; simple past and past participle told)

  1. (transitive, archaic outside of idioms) To count, reckon, or enumerate.
    All told, there were over a dozen.  Can you tell time on a clock?  He had untold wealth.
    • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC ↗:
      And in his lap a masse of coyne he told,
      And turned vpsidowne, to feede his eye
      A couetous desire with his huge threasury.
    • c. 1589–1590 (date written), Christopher Marlo[we], edited by Tho[mas] Heywood, The Famous Tragedy of the Rich Iew of Malta. […], London: […] I[ohn] B[eale] for Nicholas Vavasour, […], published 1633, →OCLC ↗, Act I ↗:
      Well fare the Arabians, who so richly pay
      The things they traffic for with wedge of gold,
      Whereof a man may easily in a day
      Tell that which may maintain him all his life.
    • 1875, Hugh MacMillan, The Sunday Magazine:
      Only He who made them can tell the number of the stars, and mark the place of each in the order of the one great dominant spiral.
  2. (transitive, ditransitive) To narrate, to recount.
    I want to tell a story;  I want to tell you a story.
    • 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter VII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC ↗:
      “ […] Churchill, my dear fellow, we have such greedy sharks, and wolves in lamb's clothing. Oh, dear, there's so much to tell you, so many warnings to give you, but all that must be postponed for the moment.”
  3. (transitive, ditransitive) To convey by speech; to say.
    Finally, someone told him the truth.  He seems to like to tell lies.
    • 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter IV, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y., London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC ↗:
      I told him about everything I could think of; and what I couldn't think of he did. He asked about six questions during my yarn, but every question had a point to it. At the end he bowed and thanked me once more. As a thanker he was main-truck high; I never see anybody so polite.
    • 2016, [https://web.archive.org/web/20181113034859/https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/lets-learn-english-lesson-2-hello/3113733.html VOA Learning English] (public domain)
      Tell her you’re here.
  4. (transitive) To instruct or inform.
    Please tell me how to do it.
    • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC ↗, Genesis xii:18 ↗:
      Why didst thou not tell me that she was thy wife?
    • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter V, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC ↗:
      But Miss Thorn relieved the situation by laughing aloud, […] . We began to tell her about Mohair and the cotillon, and of our point of observation from the Florentine galleried porch, and she insisted she would join us there.
  5. (transitive) To order; to direct, to say to someone.
    Tell him to go away.
    • 1909, H. G. Wells, Ann Veronica:
      She said she hoped she had not distressed him by the course she had felt obliged to take, and he told her not to be a fool.
  6. (transitive or intransitive) To discern, notice, identify or distinguish.
    Can you tell whether those flowers are real or silk, from this distance?  No, there's no way to tell.
    I can tell you're upset.
    An expert can tell an original from a forgery.
    • 1910, Emerson Hough, chapter I, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC ↗:
      Captain Edward Carlisle, soldier as he was, martinet as he was, felt a curious sensation of helplessness seize upon him as he met her steady gaze, her alluring smile; he could not tell what this prisoner might do.
  7. (transitive) To reveal.
    Time will tell what became of him.
  8. (intransitive) To be revealed.
    • 1990, Stephen Coonts, Under Siege, 1991 Pocket Books edition, ISBN 0671742949, p.409:
      Cherry looks old, Mergenthaler told himself. His age is telling. Querulous — that's the word. He's become a whining, querulous old man absorbed with trivialities.
  9. (intransitive) To have an effect, especially a noticeable one; to be apparent, to be demonstrated.
    Sir Gerald was moving slower; his wounds were beginning to tell.
    • 1859, John Stuart Mill, On Liberty:
      Opinion ought [… to give] merited honour to every one, whatever opinion he may hold […] keeping nothing back which tells, or can be supposed to tell, in their favour.
  10. (transitive) To use (beads or similar objects) as an aid to prayer.
  11. (intransitive, childish) To inform someone in authority about a wrongdoing.
    I saw you steal those sweets! I'm telling!
    Synonyms: tell on
  12. (authorship, intransitive) To reveal information in prose through outright expository statement -- contrasted with show
    Maria rewrote the section of her novel that talked about Meg and Sage's friendship to have less telling and more showing.
Conjugation
Conjugation of tell

infinitive (to) tell
present tense past tense
1st-person singular tell told
2nd-person singular

 tell, tellest†

 told, toldest†
3rd-person singular

 tells, telleth†

 told
plural

 tell

subjunctive

 tell

told
imperative

 tell

—
participles

 telling

 told

†Archaic or obsolete.

Synonyms Antonyms
  • (antonym(s) of “to instruct or inform”): ask
Translations Translations Translations Noun

tell (plural tells)

  1. A reflexive, often habitual behavior, especially one occurring in a context that often features attempts at deception by persons under psychological stress (such as a poker game or police interrogation), that reveals information that the person exhibiting the behavior is attempting to withhold.
  2. (informal) A giveaway; something that unintentionally reveals or hints at a secret.
  3. (archaic) That which is told; a tale or account.
    • April 4, 1743, Horace Walpole, letter to Sir Horace Mann
      I am at the end of my tell.
  4. (internet) A private message to an individual in a chat room; a whisper.
Etymology 2

From Arabic تَلّ or Hebrew תֵּל, from .

Noun

tell (plural tells)

  1. (archaeology) A hill or mound, originally and especially in the Middle East, over or consisting of the ruins of ancient settlements.
Translations
Tell
Proper noun
  1. Surname.


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