Word.ws English Dictionary

tale as old as time

tale as old as time noun: a story, subject, or theme so timeless and ageless that it can be used or retold in any time period.

Noun

tale as old as time

  1. A story, subject, or theme so timeless and ageless that it can be used or retold in any time period.
    • The story of Beauty and the Beast is a tale as old as time.
  2. An experience that has always been lived or felt across time.
  3. (broadly) A recurring event or concept that continuously repeats throughout history.
  4. (excessive) Something which is very old or everlasting.
  5. (humorous, informal, often) A common or easily predictable recurring situation or scenario.

Origin of tale as old as time

From the song "Beauty and the Beast" from the 1991 Disney animated film Beauty and the Beast.

Questions about tale as old as time

What does tale as old as time mean?
Tale as old as time means a story, subject, or theme so timeless and ageless that it can be used or retold in any time period.
What part of speech is tale as old as time?
Tale as old as time is a noun.

Words near tale as old as time in the dictionary

  1. talcums
  2. Talcville
  3. talcy
  4. Taldykorgan
  5. tale
  6. tale as old as time
  7. tale bearer
  8. tale bearers
  9. tale of the tape
  10. tale of woe
  11. tale-bearer

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tale as old as time (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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