# tell

Pronunciation: say "TEL" /tɛl/

## Verb

1. To say something to someone in words, such as a fact, an explanation, the truth or a lie, or how to do something.
   - Simple: To say something to someone, such as facts, the truth, a lie or how to do something.
   - _Can you tell me the way to the station?_
   - _The label tells you how much to take._
2. To narrate or recount.
   - Simple: To give someone a story or an account of what happened.
   - _Grandmother could tell the old legends by heart._
   - _Every winter, my grandfather would tell the story of the night he walked home through a blizzard._
3. To order or direct; to say to someone that they should do something.
   - Simple: To order someone to do something.
   - _Just tell them to wait outside._
   - _We were told to leave the building at once._
4. To perceive or make out; to recognize something or distinguish it from something else.
   - Simple: To be able to know or recognize something, or see a difference.
   - _An expert can tell a fake at a glance._
   - _Whether she loves me or not, sometimes it's hard to tell._
5. To reveal.
   - Simple: To make something known or show it.
   - _Only the records will tell who was right._
   - _Her face tells the whole story._
6. In children's speech, to inform someone in authority about a wrongdoing.
   - Simple: In children's talk, to report someone's bad behavior to an adult.
   - _Max spilled the paint, and his little sister ran off to find the teacher, shouting, 'I'm telling!'_
   - _If you tell, I'll never speak to you again._
8. To have an effect, especially a noticeable one; to be apparent.
   - Simple: To have a clear effect that people can notice.
   - _Every mistake will tell against you in the end._
   - _The strain is telling on him._
9. To count, reckon, or enumerate; now archaic except in set phrases.
   - Simple: To count, now used only in a few fixed phrases.
   - _In the quiet chapel, an old woman sat telling her beads, her lips moving with each prayer._
   - _We had planned a small dinner, but all told, more than sixty guests showed up._

## Noun

7. A reflexive, often habitual behavior that betrays what someone is trying to hide, especially under stress, as at a poker table or in an interrogation.
   - Simple: A habit, as in poker, that shows what a person is trying to hide.
   - _The detective watched for a tell as the suspect answered._
   - _Some tells are as small as a glance at the chips._
11. An unintended clue or detail that betrays something concealed, for example a secret, a forgery, or someone's real motive. *(colloquial)*
   - Simple: A sign that shows by accident something that was meant to stay hidden.
   - _The appraiser spotted the tell right away: the 1920s letter was signed in ballpoint ink._
   - _For someone who claimed to barely know her, his detailed grasp of her daily schedule was a real tell._

## Noun

10. An account or story; something recounted by a speaker or writer. *(archaic)*
   - Simple: A story that someone shares about what happened.

## Other meanings

- (verb) In writing, to convey information by outright statement rather than by scene or detail, as opposed to show.
- (noun) A whisper; a message that one participant in a chat room sends privately to another.
- (noun) An archaeological mound built up from, or covering, the ruins of ancient settlements, found especially in the Middle East, where the term arose.

## Origin

This sense comes from Middle English "tellen" and Old English "tellan" (to count, tell), from Proto-Germanic roots meaning "to count" or "number," ultimately from a Proto-Indo-European root linked to calculation. It is related to Dutch "tellen" (to count) and German "zählen," and connects to the word "tale."

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/tell (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).