Word.ws English Dictionary

old wives' tales

old wives' tales is the plural of old wives' tale.

Meaning of old wives' tale

Noun

old wives' tale (plural old wives' tales)

  1. A supposed truth that has been passed down by word of mouth
  2. A rumour, myth or superstition; something which is almost certainly untrue, despite acceptance by many.
    • According to the old wives' tales that are related about this race of genii who inhabit Iceland and its vicinity, they have a political form of government modelled after the same pattern as that which the inhabitants themselves are under.1828, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, volume I, London: William Harrison Ainsworth, page 253
    Synonyms:
    anility

Questions about old wives' tales

What is old wives' tales the plural of?
Old wives' tales is the plural of old wives' tale.

Words near old wives' tales in the dictionary

  1. old wine in a new bottle
  2. old wine in new bottles
  3. old wise tale
  4. old wives
  5. old wives' tale
  6. old wives' tales
  7. old wivish
  8. Old Woking
  9. Old Wolverton
  10. old woman
  11. old woman's tooth

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: old wives' tales (page history and authors); old wives' 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.

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