tell

== English == === Pronunciation === (MLE) IPA(key): [tʰɔː] (UK, General American) enPR: tĕl, IPA(key): /tɛl/, [tʰɛl], [tʰɛɫ] Rhymes: -ɛl === Etymology 1 === From Middle English tellen (“to count, tell”), from Old English tellan (“to count, tell”), from Proto-West Germanic *talljan, from Proto-Germanic *taljaną, *talzijaną (“to count, enumerate”), from Proto-Germanic *talą, *talō (“number, counting”), from Proto-Indo-European *dol- (“calculation, fraud”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian tälle (“to say; tell”), West Frisian telle (“to count”), West Frisian fertelle (“to tell, narrate”), Dutch tellen (“to count”) and Dutch vertellen (“to tell”), Low German tellen (“to count”), German zählen, Faroese telja. More at tale. ==== Verb ==== tell (third-person singular simple present tells, present participle telling, simple past and past participle told or (dialectal or nonstandard) telled) (transitive, archaic outside of idioms) To count, reckon, or enumerate. (transitive, ditransitive) To narrate, to recount. (transitive, ditransitive) To convey by speech; to say. 2016, VOA Learning English (public domain) Tell her you’re here. (transitive) To instruct or inform. (transitive) To order; to direct, to say to someone. (transitive or intransitive) To discern, notice, identify or distinguish. 1892 Harry Dacre, "Daisy Bell (Bicycle Built for Two)": Whether she loves me or loves me not / Sometimes it's hard to tell (transitive) To reveal. (intransitive) To be revealed. 1990, Stephen Coonts, Under Siege, 1991 Pocket Books edition, →ISBN, 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. (intransitive) To have an effect, especially a noticeable one; to be apparent, to be demonstrated. (transitive) To use (beads or similar objects) as an aid to prayer. (intransitive, childish) To inform someone in authority about a wrongdoing. Synonym: tell on (authorship, intransitive) To reveal information in prose through outright expository statement — contrasted with show. ===== Usage notes ===== In dialects, other past tense forms (besides told) may be found, including tald/tauld (Scotland), tawld (Devonshire), teld (Yorkshire, Devonshire), telled (Northern England, Scotland, and in nonstandard speech generally), telt (Scotland, Geordie), tole (AAVE, Southern US, and some dialects of England), toll (AAVE), tolt (AAVE). ===== Conjugation ===== ===== Synonyms ===== (enumerate): count, number; see also Thesaurus:count (narrate): narrate, recount, relate (to instruct or inform): advise, apprise; See also Thesaurus:inform (reveal): disclose, make known; See also Thesaurus:divulge (inform someone in authority): grass up, snitch, tattle; See also Thesaurus:rat out ===== Antonyms ===== (antonym(s) of “to instruct or inform”): ask ===== Derived terms ===== ===== Translations ===== ==== Noun ==== tell (plural tells) 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. (informal) A giveaway; something that unintentionally reveals or hints at a secret. (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. (Internet) A private message to an individual in a chat room; a whisper. ===== See also ===== dead giveaway === Etymology 2 === From Arabic تَلّ (tall, “hill, elevation”) or Hebrew תֵּל (tél, “hill”), from Proto-Semitic *tall- (“hill”). ==== Noun ==== tell (plural tells) (archaeology) A hill or mound, originally and especially in the Middle East, over or consisting of the ruins of ancient settlements. ===== Translations ===== == Hawaiian Creole == === Etymology === Derived from English tell. === Verb === tell (transitive, ditransitive) To tell (convey by speech; say). == Norwegian Bokmål == === Verb === tell imperative of telle == Spanish == === Etymology === Unadapted borrowing from French tell, from Arabic تَلّ (tall, “hill, elevation”). === Pronunciation === IPA(key): /ˈtel/ [ˈt̪el] Rhymes: -el Syllabification: tell === Noun === tell m (plural tells) (archaeology) tell ==== Usage notes ==== According to Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) prescriptions, unadapted foreign words should be written in italics in a text printed in roman type, and vice versa, and in quotation marks in a manuscript text or when italics are not available. In practice, this RAE prescription is not always followed. === Further reading === “tell”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8.1, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 15 December 2025 == Yola == === Preposition === tell alternative form of del === References === Jacob Poole (d. 1827) (before 1828), William Barnes, editor, A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, published 1867, page 84