I. ˈtāl, esp before pause or consonant -āəl noun
( -s )
Etymology: Middle English, talk, narrative, list, from Old English talu; akin to Old High German zala number, Old Norse tala talk, number, Gothic talzjan to instruct, and probably to Latin dolus guile, deceit, Greek dolos
1. obsolete : relation , discourse , talk
2.
a. : a series of related events or facts told or presented usually to justify or clarify something : explanatory statement : account
this error was due to a tale of misfortunes piling up simultaneously — Frank Debenham
a similar tale of lack of communication between administrators and students — M.J.Herskovits
multiple-factor analysis has much the same tale to tell — William Stephenson
thereby hangs a tale — Shakespeare
b.
(1) : a report of a secret or confidential matter — often used in plural
dead men tell no tales
telling tales out of school
(2) : idle talk or rumor : slander
the person who listens to gossip makes no free and generous effort to understand … the person about whom the tale is told — H.A.Overstreet
c. : an account, enumeration, or category common to two or more persons or things
the disputants ultimately found themselves in the same tale
3.
a. : a narrative of some event or sequence of actual, legendary, or fictitious events usually imaginatively composed with intent to entertain or amuse : story
tales based on folklore, legends of great men and small — Jane G. Mahler
it is essential … to know whether a given tale is regarded as historical fact or fiction — W.R.Bascom
the tale goes back to the time when he was still a buck private — Marion Hargrove
b. : an untrue or inaccurate relation of events, incidents, or facts : falsehood
the prince of literary rogues, who always preferred the tale to the truth — Sir Winston Churchill
sheer tall tales spun by a moralist who was also a comic poet — Margaret Marshall
4.
a. : a reckoning or enumeration by numbers : count , tally
as he admitted them to the fold … cast away one pebble at a time from his pile until the tale was complete — J.A.N.Friend
when the short tale of English dead is rendered — L.G.Pine
b. : a number of things taken in the aggregate : sum , total
find pride, impatience, unreasonableness … all the unpleasant if effective tale of traits of the successful technician of revolution — Crane Brinton
c. : a recorded accounting or declaration
repaired to the treasury where each handed over his tale of 70 pieces — John Craig
II. transitive verb
( -ed/-ing/-s )
: to count, enumerate, or tell out (something) by number
III.
variant of tael