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What is "tale"

Crossword clues for tale

tale
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
tale
noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
cautionary tale (=the story of an event that is used to warn people)
▪ a cautionary tale about how not to buy a computer
fairy tale
tell a story/tale
▪ He then told the story of how he was injured while riding his motorcycle.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
cautionary
▪ Thank you for your cautionary tale Richard.
▪ That is why she offers a cautionary tale about the parent traps facing all women.
▪ I suspect it was a cautionary tale.
▪ Tootle seems to be essentially a cautionary tale, warning the child to stay on the narrow road of virtue.
▪ Other revelations serve as cautionary tales about the importance of subordinating military officials to civilian authority.
▪ As a cautionary tale this book works very well.
▪ It is a cautionary tale told with sad humour on the border between innocence and togetherness.
▪ But Louima's case was the cautionary tale.
classic
▪ Snow White is a classic tale, one that conjures up wonderful images of mythical creatures.
▪ He was the changeling of the classic tale, thrust on good people, who was to repay good with evil.
folk
▪ But myths, folk tales, legends and, yes, religious stories are different.
▪ An ancient folk tale, it became the source of a number of legends and literary adaptations.
▪ Twilight Tales is a collection of spooky legends and folk tales passed through generations in the Southwest.
old
▪ I think it's an old wives' tale that make-up ruins the skin.
▪ An old tale tells of a holy priest who visited his nephew, a scurrilous tavern-keeper.
▪ The old wives' tales that have answered the pleas of fathers for centuries are mostly ineffective.
▪ But, as in so many old tales, the warriors get a fresh chance to strut their stuff.
▪ Whatever doctors, old wives' tales, and the Roman Catholic Church may say, human ovulation is invisible and unpredictable.
▪ Old men retold old tales once again.
▪ I think every guy who can scribble slightly better than he dribbles has felt compelled to share the same old tale.
sad
▪ It depicts the sad tale of a lavatory attendant, Jim, who reads newspapers to seek a new career.
▪ She confessed to cleaning his house, and also told her own sad tale.
▪ It was no longer believed to be a sad tale of the power of fortune to undermine love.
▪ A sad tale about a man who died at the age of 103 because no one would give him any money.
▪ A sad little tale it sounded, a trivial matter to consign a soul to perpetual separation.
tall
▪ He wowed his colleagues after hours with tall tales.
▪ No Baron Munchausen would have dared to imprison his saga within the limits of a tall tale.
▪ And yet all his life, his integrity warred with a flair for the theatrical, a fondness for tall tales.
■ NOUN
morality
▪ The problem is that, as with any morality tale, this is a very partial truth.
▪ No wonder we prefer the simplicity of morality tales with comforting villains.
▪ Arthurian legends or the morality tales of life under capitalism were not enough.
■ VERB
hear
▪ I heard tales, let me see, about a second child having visions, of a somewhat different sort?
▪ But I have to hear the whole tale.
▪ We used to hear tales that some of the singers could be difficult.
▪ Edward believed it when he heard the tale.
▪ She'd heard sickening tales of barbarous Gestapo torture, and of prisoners who were never seen again.
▪ She'd heard the stories - everybody had heard the tale about Jenny being abandoned here as a baby.
▪ Don't want to hear no tales told about you from them nice nurses.
▪ I've heard some pretty grim tales from people who've let property complete with furnishings to strangers.
listen
▪ I listened to many tales of powerlessness, of personal degradation, hopelessness and unhappiness.
▪ I listened to their tales of spiritual enlightenment, past lives, cosmic futures.
▪ You must listen to their interminable tales of marital woe.
▪ And he in turn makes it the experience of those who are listening to his tale.
▪ His morose ruminations were interrupted by Benny Katz, who wanted anyone he could find to listen to his tale of woe.
▪ The therapist listened to her tale of being afraid to ask anyone for money.
▪ In fact, these were the kind of difficulties about which they used to chuckle when listening to tales from Windowswedded acquaintances.
read
▪ Several read both tales as moral dramas in which human sin is revealed, judged and punished.
▪ May we never read such a tale of horror in our newspapers.
▪ Some of his exploits read like folk tales.
▪ Second, to actually read the tales aloud from a book would take half an hour each evening.
▪ I had read Eothen and other tales of Eastern travel and my imagination endowed Constantinople with all the magic of the East.
recount
▪ Certainly, he seemed strangely quiet and bemused as he recounted the extraordinary tale.
▪ They saw a sometimes remorseful, if inarticulate and profane, Davis recount his now-familiar tale of killing 12-year-old Polly.
▪ So far he hasn't had too many problems but doubtless he could recount some interesting tales!
▪ I spend a lot of time recounting tales of woe from friends and readers, but this one is my own.
spin
▪ But Riva still spins her tales, for Rainbow's ears alone.
tell
▪ Bigger waves undoubtedly occur, but those who witness them do not return to tell the tale.
▪ I did not propose to tell them any tales about the Ku Klux Klan.
▪ Then I told about the tales the neighbours were telling about her Mum and her men friends.
▪ It is a prettily told tale, after the manner of Ovid.
▪ You told me tales and adventures.
▪ Another famous senator who switched and survived politically to tell the tale is Phil Gramm of Texas.
▪ But it takes a mighty age to tell its tale and dives head-first into the soap suds along the way.
▪ What could have led the President to tell such tales?
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
old wives' tale
▪ It's not true that if trees have a lot of fruit in the autumn it will be a cold winter - that's just an old wives' tale.
▪ And so the old wives' tale continues.
▪ I think it's an old wives' tale that make-up ruins the skin.
▪ Some dismiss these as myth in the sense of old wives' tales.
▪ That's only an old wives' tale.
▪ The old wives' tales that have answered the pleas of fathers for centuries are mostly ineffective.
▪ Whatever doctors, old wives' tales, and the Roman Catholic Church may say, human ovulation is invisible and unpredictable.
spin a tale/story/yarn
▪ He could spin a yarn, and you had to take what he said with a pinch of salt.
▪ Joe was in top form, spinning stories, issuing pronunciamentos, dropping withering quips at every opportunity.
▪ She liked to spin yarn, sing, and dance.
tall story/tale
▪ And yet all his life, his integrity warred with a flair for the theatrical, a fondness for tall tales.
▪ But there's still time to remember tall stories from previous superintendents.
▪ He wowed his colleagues after hours with tall tales.
▪ Horden's design blended innovation and massing A tall story or a tourdeforce?
▪ No Baron Munchausen would have dared to imprison his saga within the limits of a tall tale.
▪ With his feeling for tall stories he's a radio natural, though.
tell tales
▪ As soon as she entered the room she knew that Clare had already been telling tales; or at least complaining to her colleagues.
▪ Edwin was long on charm but short on substance, was the feeling; he told tales a bit too deftly.
▪ I don't want to tell tales out of school.
▪ Nearly anyone who had been in an iron lung could tell tales of being stranded without breathing help.
▪ No child should be put in the powerful position of having to tell tales on another child.
▪ No one to tell tales, then.
▪ Of course, Albee is quite accustomed to telling tales about vicious people stuck in broken relationships.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ 'Treasure Island' - a tale of pirates and adventure
▪ Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales
▪ She told us many tales about when our father was a child.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Aline's insight underlined my conviction on holiday that this was one tale not for retelling.
▪ All the same, signalmen can be a fund of unexpected tales and it is always interesting to hear their stories.
▪ But as James' tale develops, it assumes complexity.
▪ But her unbalanced monologues feel a bit artificial, her present tragedy less gripping than her tale of the past.
▪ During breaks, the group tells presentation disaster tales.
▪ Her story received enormous media coverage, perhaps because many people were fascinated with this incredible tale of political transformations.
▪ In other words, the critical key to James's tales is provided by the tales themselves.
Related phrases:
The Collaborative International Dictionary
tale

Tael \Tael\, n. [Malay ta?l, a certain weight, probably fr. Hind. tola, Skr. tul[=a] a balance, weight, tul to weigh.] A denomination of money, in China, worth nearly six shillings sterling, or about a dollar and forty cents; also, a weight of one ounce and a third. [Written also tale.]

Related phrases:
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
tale

Old English talu "series, calculation," also "story, tale, statement, deposition, narrative, fable, accusation, action of telling," from Proto-Germanic *talo (cognates: Dutch taal "speech, language," Danish tale "speech, talk, discourse," German Erzählung "story," Gothic talzjan "to teach"), from PIE root *del- (2) "to recount, count." The secondary Modern English sense of "number, numerical reckoning" (c.1200) probably was the primary one in Germanic; see tell (v.), teller and Old Frisian tale, Middle Dutch tal, Old Saxon tala, Danish tal, Old High German zala, German Zahl "number."\n

\nThe ground sense of the Modern English word in its main meaning, then, might have been "an account of things in their due order." Related to talk (v.) and tell (v.). Meaning "things divulged that were given secretly, gossip" is from mid-14c.; first record of talebearer "tattletale" is late 15c.

Wiktionary
tale

Etymology 1 n. 1 (context obsolete English) number. 2 (context obsolete English) account; estimation; regard; heed. 3 (context obsolete English) speech; language. 4 (context obsolete English) A speech; a statement; talk; conversation; discourse. 5 (context legal obsolete English) A count; declaration. 6 (context rare or archaic English) numbering; enumeration; reckoning; account; count. 7 (context rare or archaic English) A number of things considered as an aggregate; sum. 8 (context rare or archaic English) A report of any matter; a relation; a version. 9 An account of an asserted fact or circumstance; a rumour; a report, especially an idle or malicious story; a piece of gossip or slander; a lie. Etymology 2

vb. 1 (context dialectal or obsolete English) To speak; discourse; tell tales. 2 (context dialectal chiefly Scotland English) To reckon; consider (someone) to have something. Etymology 3

n. (alternative form of tael English)

Related phrases:
WordNet
tale

  1. n. a message that tells the particulars of an act or occurrence or course of events; presented in writing or drama or cinema or as a radio or television program; "his narrative was interesting"; "Disney's stories entertain adults as well as children" [syn: narrative, narration, story]

  2. a trivial lie; "he told a fib about eating his spinach"; "how can I stop my child from telling stories?" [syn: fib, story, tarradiddle, taradiddle]

Related phrases:
Wikipedia
Tale

Tale may refer to:

  • A narrative
  • TAL effector (TALE), a type of DNA binding protein
  • Tale, Albania, a resort town
  • Tale, Iran, a village
  • Tale, Maharashtra, a village in Ratnagiri district, Maharashtra state, India
Related phrases:

Usage examples of "tale".

Kuhmbuhluhners on their big horses, aided and abetted, if the tales of the fugitives were to be believed, by bearded Ahrmehnee warriors and even Moon Maidens.

The Canterbury Tales, so far as they are in verse, have been printed without any abridgement or designed change in the sense.

But all stories about Granny Aching had a bit of fairy tale about them.

Constantinople, who delighted to repeat, perhaps to adorn, the tale of their misery.

I could offer them a way to be remembered forever in tales and gain an adulthood always honored: negotiate with the Jawas and me to secure the boundaries of their land and thus their nomadic way of life.

Because wanting to convince anyone that there was no Amadis in the world or any of the adventuring knights who fill the histories, is the same as trying to persuade that person that the sun does not shine, ice is not cold, and the earth bears no crops, for what mind in the world can persuade another that the story of Princess Floripes and Guy de Bourgogne is not true, or the tale of Fierabras and the Bridge of Mantible, which occurred in the time of Charlemagne, and is as true as the fact that it is now day?

Yet the tale of it is remembered still, for Thorondor King of Eagles brought the tidings to Gondolin, and to Hithlum afar off.

The others remained, by desire or command, fear unbodied, and they could only observe the unfolding of the Tale of Arda from afar, having no effect therein.

On that inhospitable shore, Euripides, embellishing with exquisite art the tales of antiquity, has placed the scene of one of his most affecting tragedies.

He looked aftward as he spoke, and saw that the other MACOs seemed to be utterly absorbed in some other tale of MACO derring-do.

Between bites he regaled Aganippe with tales of his conquests -- each exploit reminding him of another.

His romanticism is very Russian, genuinely akin to the spirit of Russian folk song and folk tales.

Some of the characters in my tale are present in the Void Which Bind largely as scars, holes, vacancies -- the Nemes creatures are such vacuums, as are Councillor Albedo and the other Core entities -- but I was able to track some of the movements and actions of these beings simply by the movement of that vacancy through the matrix of sentient emotion that was the Void, much as one would see the outline of an invisible man in a hard rain.

Thure in a whisper to Bud, as the alcalde, having completed the tale of the jury, again turned to them.

Seregil proved as fine a wayfaring companion as Alec could have hoped for, happy to fill the long hours of riding with tales, songs, and legends.