Wiktionary
a. (alternative spelling of telltale English)
Wikipedia
A tell-tale or telltale is an indicator, signal, or sign that conveys the status of a situation, mechanism, or system.
Tell-Tale is a 2009 thriller film inspired by the Edgar Allan Poe short story " The Tell-Tale Heart". It is directed by Michael Cuesta and stars Josh Lucas, Lena Headey, and Brian Cox and is produced by Tony Scott and Ridley Scott. A man's recently transplanted heart leads him on a frantic search to find the donor's killer before a similar fate befalls him.
Usage examples of "tell-tale".
Overhead hung an ordinary tell-tale compass, and compactly placed on other parts of the wall were barometers, thermometers, barographs, and, in fact, practically every instrument that the most exacting of aeronauts or Space-explorers could have asked for.
The beams looked solid enough, but it was easy to see where fresh paint had been applied to conceal the tell-tale blotches of softening decay.
From this a passage runs to the Representative Chamber, passing between those tell-tale windows, which, looking to the right and left, proclaim the tenuity of the building.
Even without those tell-tale smiles, Audubon would have known he was being gouged.
If spoken to, instead of looking directly at the person to whom he addresses an answer, the masturbator looks to one side, or lets his eyes fall upon the ground, seemingly conscious that the eye is a wonderful tell-tale of the secrets of the mind.
The wind rustled leaves and the odd bit of refuse up and down the street, effectively swallowing any tell-tale sounds that might have warned her of approaching bogans and the like.
Sharpe looked to the north and west, searching for the tell-tale drifts of dust that would speak of reinforcements hurrying towards the threatened crossroads.
He did not need to glance at the accelerometer mounted among the other tell-tale instruments on the bulkhead of his cabin.
A man with a scar like that, and with those tell-tale calluses on his hands, wasn't an ordinary man working an ordinary job.
Manchester breathed the perfume of the little wood as they entered, looking about, spotting the orange-red tell-tale of numerous Arbutus andrachne and the brighter bark of the vigorous hybrid Arbutus x andrachnoides: Strawberry Trees.
He might have known that to set to work to cultivate the society of a woman with such tell-tale eyes as Jess's was to run the risk of catching the fire from them himself, to say nothing of setting her alight: he might have known that to bring all the weight of his cultivated mind to bear on her mind, to take the deepest interest in her studies, to implore her to let him see the poetry Bessie told him she wrote, but which she would show to no living soul, and to evince the most evident delight in her singing, were one and all hazardous things to do.
He checked out the tell-tales, then concentrated on the life-support mechanisms.
The alcohol wipe not only is a safety factor, but it eliminates tell-tale fingerprints in case the Molotov doesn't ignite.
But emplacing them would also have been a tell-tale trail of bread crumbs for any Arachnid picket or survey force which had chanced upon them, and the lieutenant's odd eyes met the admiral's squarely.
Less invasively, it would be possible to look for tell-tale molecules of life in Europa's thin atmosphere, and plans are afoot to do this too.