tale
noun
Simple meaning
A rehearsal of what has occurred.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
taylIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈteɪl
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A rehearsal of what has occurred; narrative; discourse; statement; history; story.
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.
A number told or counted off; a reckoning by count; an enumeration.
Any of several units of measure used in China and elsewhere in eastern Asia, approximately 40 grams, and metricated in Mainland China as exactly 50 grams.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A rehearsal of what has occurred; narrative; discourse; statement; history; story.
Used this way, tale is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in literature or storytelling and historical writing contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where it naturally appears
- Literature/storytelling
- Historical writing
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: rehearsal of what has occurred
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Words can change meaning depending on context.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.