Word.ws English Dictionary

tell-tale

tell-tale is the alternative spelling of telltale.

Meaning of telltale

Adjective

telltale (comparative more telltale, superlative most telltale)

  1. Revealing something, especially something not intended to be known.
    • I noticed the snow was dirty, a telltale sign of recent human presence.

See all 11 meanings of telltale

Forms of tell-tale

Adjective
comparativemore tell-tale
superlativemost tell-tale
Noun
pluraltell-tales

Words formed from tell-tale

Phrases with tell-tale

Questions about tell-tale

What is tell-tale the alternative spelling of?
Tell-tale is the alternative spelling of telltale.

Words near tell-tale in the dictionary

  1. tell you the truth
  2. tell you what
  3. tell-a-story
  4. tell-all
  5. tell-alls
  6. tell-tale
  7. tell-tale compass
  8. tell-tale compasses
  9. tell-tale-tit
  10. tell-tale-tits
  11. tell-tales

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tell-tale (page history and authors); telltale (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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Cite this entry: “tell-tale.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tell-tale. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.