Word.ws English Dictionary

I tell a lie

I tell a lie phrase: i am mistaken; I thought that what I said (or wrote) was true, but I have just realised that it is not.

Phrase

I tell a lie

  1. (UK, idiomatic) I am mistaken; I thought that what I said (or wrote) was true, but I have just realised that it is not.
    • I visited Canada in 1996—no, I tell a lie, in 1997.
    Synonyms:
    that's not right, that's not so

Synonyms of I tell a lie

  • that's not right
  • that's not so

Questions about I tell a lie

What does I tell a lie mean?
I tell a lie means i am mistaken; I thought that what I said (or wrote) was true, but I have just realised that it is not.
What part of speech is I tell a lie?
I tell a lie is a phrase.

Words near I tell a lie in the dictionary

  1. I spy
  2. I spy with my little eye
  3. I stand corrected
  4. I swear
  5. I take it
  6. I tell a lie
  7. I tell you
  8. I tell you what
  9. I think
  10. I think not
  11. I think so

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: I tell a lie (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “I tell a lie.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/i_tell_a_lie. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.