live to tell the tale
live to tell the tale verb: to survive some difficulty, illness, etc.
Verb
live to tell the tale (third-person singular simple present lives to tell the tale, present participle living to tell the tale, simple past and past participle lived to tell the tale)
- To survive some difficulty, illness, etc.
- Living with gun violence can desensitize you. Humor was our coping mechanism, designed to keep complex emotions at bay. I’m ashamed to say that I made fun of family members who were shot and lived to tell the tale.2019 August 25, Lisa Page, “My Family’s Gun Wounds: A Tale in Three Acts”, in The Atlantic
- Synonyms:
- survive to tell the tale
Synonyms of live to tell the tale
Forms of live to tell the tale
| third-person singular present | lives to tell the tale |
|---|---|
| present participle | living to tell the tale |
| past participle | lived to tell the tale |
| past | lived to tell the tale |
Questions about live to tell the tale
- What does live to tell the tale mean?
- Live to tell the tale means to survive some difficulty, illness, etc.
- What part of speech is live to tell the tale?
- Live to tell the tale is a verb.
- What is the past tense of live to tell the tale?
- The past tense of live to tell the tale is lived to tell the tale.
Words near live to tell the tale in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: live to tell the tale (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: “live to tell the tale.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/live_to_tell_the_tale. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.