tale

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

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

   the Canterbury Tales

2. 2
   noun

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

   the ignorant, […] who measure by tale, and not by weight

3. 3
   noun

   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!

4. 4
   noun

   Number; tally; quota.

   And the tale of the bricks, which they did make heretofore, ye shall lay upon them; ye shall not diminish ought thereof: for they be idle; therefore they cry, saying, Let us go and sacrifice to our God.

5. 5
   noun

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

   […] birds […] are aptest by their voice to tell tales what they find; and likewise by the motion of their flight to express the same.

6. 6
   noun

   a trivial lie

7. 7
   noun

   a message that tells the particulars of an act or occurrence or course of events

8. 8
   noun

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

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, 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 t…