Word.ws English Dictionary

tell

/tɛl/

tell verb: to determine the number, amount, or value of [something].

Verb

tell (third-person singular simple present tells, present participle telling, simple past and past participle told or (dialectal or nonstandard) telled or tolled)

  1. (transitive, archaic outside of idioms) To determine the number, amount, or value of [something].
    • All told, there were over a dozen. Can you tell time on a clock? He had untold wealth.
    • And in his lap a masse of coyne he told,
      And turned vpsidowne, to feede his eye
      A couetous desire with his huge threasury.1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC
    Synonyms:
    count, reckon, enumerate
  2. (intransitive, transitive) To notice, discern. (Roughly, "can tell" means "know" but with a sense of direct perception.)
    • I can tell that you're thrilled.
    • You can tell you've struck a nerve when even the crowd stops laughing.
  3. (intransitive, transitive) To pick up on a difference. (See tell apart for more.)
    • An expert can tell an original from a forgery.
    • Can you tell whether those flowers are real or silk, from this distance? No, there's no way to tell.
  4. (ditransitive, transitive) To narrate, to recount.
    • I want to tell a story; I want to tell you a story.
    • “[…]Churchill, my dear fellow, we have such greedy sharks, and wolves in lamb's clothing. Oh, dear, there's so much to tell you, so many warnings to give you, but all that must be postponed for the moment.”1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter VII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC
    Synonyms:
    narrate, recount, relate
  5. (ditransitive, transitive) To convey by speech; to say.
    • Finally, someone told him the truth. He seems to like to tell lies.
    • I told him about everything I could think of; and what I couldn't think of he did. He asked about six questions during my yarn, but every question had a point to it. At the end he bowed and thanked me once more. As a thanker he was main-truck high; I never see anybody so polite.1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter IV, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC
  6. (transitive) To instruct or inform.
    • Please tell me how to do it.
    • Why didst thou not tell me that she was thy wife?1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Genesis xii:18
    Synonyms:
    advise
  7. (transitive) To order; to direct, to say to someone.
    • Tell him to go away.
    • She said she hoped she had not distressed him by the course she had felt obliged to take, and he told her not to be a fool.1909, H. G. Wells, Ann Veronica
  8. (transitive) To use (beads or similar objects) as an aid to prayer.
  9. (childish, intransitive) To inform someone in authority about a wrongdoing.
    • I saw you steal those sweets! I'm telling!
    Synonyms:
    tell on, grass up
  10. (intransitive) To reveal information in prose through outright expository statement — contrasted with show.
    • Maria rewrote the section of her novel that talked about Meg and Sage's friendship to have less telling and more showing.
  11. (intransitive) To show, be showing, be revealed.
    • Cherry looks old, Mergenthaler told himself. His age is telling. Querulous — that's the word. He's become a whining, querulous old man absorbed with trivialities.1990, Stephen Coonts, Under Siege, 1991 Pocket Books edition, p.409
  12. (transitive) To reveal.
    • Time will tell what became of him.
    Synonyms:
    disclose
  13. (intransitive) To have an effect, especially a noticeable one; to be apparent, to be demonstrated.
    • Sir Gerald was moving slower; his wounds were beginning to tell.
    • Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid...1918, William Strunk, Jr., The Elements of Style
  14. (intransitive) (of a fact) To support a certain position.
    • Opinion ought [… to give] merited honour to every one, whatever opinion he may hold[…]keeping nothing back which tells, or can be supposed to tell, in their favour.1859, John Stuart Mill, On Liberty
    • For these reasons, I conclude that this factor tells in favour of Italy as the proper forum for the litigation between the parties.1999 July 14, James C. MacPherson, “Eastern Power Limited v. Azienda Communale Energia and Ambiente, 1999 CanLII 3785 (ON CA)”, in CanLII, retrieved 09 Jun 2026

Noun (1)

tell (plural tells)

  1. A reflexive, often habitual behavior, especially one occurring in a context that often features attempts at deception by persons under psychological stress (such as a poker game or police interrogation), that reveals information that the person exhibiting the behavior is attempting to withhold.
  2. (informal) A giveaway; something that unintentionally reveals or hints at a secret.
    • Those whose business it is to verify luxury bags insist, at least publicly, that there’s always a “tell” to a superfake.2023 May 4, Amy X. Wang, Grant Cornett, “Inside the Delirious Rise of ‘Superfake’ Handbags”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
    • Republican Congressman Chris Smith of New Jersey said recently that “Israel is the only state in the world whose fundamental right to exist, within any borders at all, is openly denied by other states.” But Israel is the only nation with a “right to exist,” as the phrase is not commonly attached to...2024 January 3, John Patrick Leary, “Israel's "Right to Exist" Is a Rhetorical Trap”, in The New Republic
  3. (archaic) That which is told; a tale or account.
    • April 4, 1743, Horace Walpole, letter to Sir Horace Mann
      I am at the end of my tell.
  4. (Internet) A private message to an individual in a chat room; a whisper.

Noun (2)

tell (plural tells)

  1. A hill or mound, originally and especially in the Middle East, over or consisting of the ruins of ancient settlements.
    • Succoth is now associated with a large tell situated in the Jordan Valley, Deir Allah.2001, David L. Lieber, Jules Harlow, Etz Hayim: Torah and Commentary, page 205

Proper noun capitalized: Tell

Tell (plural Tells)

  1. A surname.

tell meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

tell in Hindi

to pass information
कहना kahnā

tell in Tamil

சொல், தெரிவி, நவில், கூறு

tell in Marathi

to pass information
सांगणे sāṅgṇe

tell in Urdu

to pass information
کَہْنا kahnā
More languagesFewer languages
tell in Bengali
বলা bola
tell in Telugu
నివేదించు nivēdiñcu
tell in Malayalam
ചൊല്ലുക colluka
tell in Kannada
ಒಕ್ಕಣಿಸು okkaṇisu, ನುಡಿ nuḍi
tell in Punjabi
ਦੱਸਣਾ dassaṇā, ਸੁਣਾਉਣਾ suṇāuṇā, دسنا dassṇā, ਫ਼ਰਮਾਉਣਾ farmāuṇā
tell in Odia
କୁହନ୍ତୁ
tell in Sanskrit
गदति gadati
tell in Assamese
ক ko
tell in Nepali
भन्नु bhannu
tell in Pashto
اظهارول ezhārawᶕl
tell in Tagalog
sabihin
tell in Arabic
أَخْبَرَ ʔaḵbara, قَالَ qāla, تَلّ tall
tell in Malay
kata
tell in Indonesian
kata
tell in Persian
گُفْتَن goftan
tell in Thai
บอก bɔ̀ɔk, กล่าว glàao, พูด pûut
tell in Vietnamese
kể, bảo, nói
tell in Myanmar
ပြော prau:
Kashmiri
وَنُن vanun, دَپُن dapun, بوزناوُن bōznāvun

Examples of tell in a sentence

  • She couldn't tell the words on the chalkboard without her glasses.
  • Only He who made them can tell the number of the stars, and mark the place of each in the order of the one great dominant spiral.1875, Hugh MacMillan, The Sunday Magazine:
  • Whether she loves me or loves me not / Sometimes it's hard to tell1892 Harry Dacre, "Daisy Bell (Bicycle Built for Two)"
  • We began to tell her about Mohair and the cotillon, and of our point of observation from the Florentine galleried porch, and she insisted she would join us there.1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter V, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company...
  • The driver remained at his post, while telling fireman Jim Nightall to get down on the track and run back to uncouple the burning wagon from the rest.2022 January 12, Benedict le Vay, “The heroes of Soham...”, in RAIL, number 948:

All 40 example sentences with tell

Synonyms of tell

5 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of tell

Forms of tell

Verb
third-person singular presenttells
present participletelling
past participletold
pasttold
past participletolled
pasttolled
past participle (dialectal)telled
past (dialectal)telled
second-person singular present (archaic)tellest
second-person singular past (archaic)toldest
third-person singular present (archaic)telleth
Noun
pluraltells
Proper noun
pluralTells

Past tense of tell: told

Plural of tell: tells

Origin of tell

From Middle English tellen (“to count, tell”), from Old English tellan (“to count, tell”), from Proto-West Germanic *talljan, from Proto-Germanic *taljaną, *talzijaną (“to count, enumerate”), from Proto-Germanic *talą, *talō (“number, counting”), from Proto-Indo-European *dol- (“calculation, fraud”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian tälle (“to say; tell”), West Frisian telle (“to count”), West Frisian fertelle (“to tell, narrate”), Dutch tellen (“to count”) and Dutch vertellen (“to tell”), Low German tellen (“to count”), German zählen, Faroese telja, Swedish tala (“to speak”). More at tale.

From Arabic تَلّ (tall, “hill, elevation”) or Hebrew תֵּל (tél, “hill”), from Proto-Semitic *tall- (“hill”).

Words formed from tell

Phrases with tell

36 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with tell

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about tell

What does tell mean?
Tell means to determine the number, amount, or value of [something].
What is tell in Hindi?
Tell in Hindi is कहना (kahnā). See Tell meaning in Hindi.
How do you use tell in a sentence?
She couldn't tell the words on the chalkboard without her glasses.
What part of speech is tell?
Tell can be a verb, a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce tell?
Tell is pronounced /tɛl/ (UK).
What is the past tense of tell?
The past tense of tell is told.

Words near tell in the dictionary

  1. Telita
  2. telithromycin
  3. Teliucu Inferior
  4. telium
  5. Telkes
  6. tell
  7. tell a story
  8. tell against
  9. tell all
  10. tell apart
  11. Tell City

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tell (page history and authors); Tell (page history and authors); tell (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); నివేదించు (Telugu) (page history and authors); ചൊല്ലുക (Malayalam) (page history and authors); ಒಕ್ಕಣಿಸು (Kannada) (page history and authors); دسنا (Punjabi) (page history and authors); tell (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-tell.wav, en-us-tell.ogg.

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