untold

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   too great or numerous to be calculated or described

   The flood caused untold damage to homes along the river.

2. 2
   adj

   not narrated, disclosed, or made known

   The letters reveal an untold chapter of the explorer's life.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Untold meant “not counted” or “unspecified” in Old English, reflecting the older counting sense of tell. By late Middle English it had developed the meaning “not able to be counted,” as in untold suffering.

From Old English unteald, "not counted or reckoned," formed from un- + the past participle of tell. Tell once meant both "count" and "relate." Those two meanings survive in untold: something may be too vast to count or a story may not have been related.

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External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary