telling
noun · adjective
Simple meaning
Disclosing information or giving evidence about another.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
tehlingSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈtɛlɪŋ
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
Disclosing information or giving evidence about another
chiefly in the negative
Ability to determine.
The disclosure of information.
The act of narration.
adjective
Revealing information; bearing significance.
Serving to convince.
Having force, or having a marked effect; weighty, effective.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A2 · Elementary (estimated)
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Disclosing information or giving evidence about another
Used this way, telling is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Nearby words
- singing , more casual, better suited to speech than 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.
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Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
An electronic device that receives television signals and displays them on a screen.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
The art or gift of prophecy (or the pretense of prophecy) by supernatural means.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
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What Does It Mean Here?
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.