Word.ws English Dictionary

tell it like it is

tell it like it is verb: to speak frankly, to convey all and only the truth of a situation.

Verb

tell it like it is (third-person singular simple present tells it like it is, present participle telling it like it is, simple past and past participle told it like it is)

  1. (idiomatic) To speak frankly, to convey all and only the truth of a situation.

Forms of tell it like it is

third-person singular presenttells it like it is
present participletelling it like it is
past participletold it like it is
pasttold it like it is

Questions about tell it like it is

What does tell it like it is mean?
Tell it like it is means to speak frankly, to convey all and only the truth of a situation.
What part of speech is tell it like it is?
Tell it like it is is a verb.
What is the past tense of tell it like it is?
The past tense of tell it like it is is told it like it is.

Words near tell it like it is in the dictionary

  1. tell apart
  2. Tell City
  3. Tell el-Amarna
  4. Tell el-Muqayyar
  5. tell fortunes
  6. tell it like it is
  7. tell it to Sweeney
  8. tell it to the hand
  9. tell it to the judge
  10. tell it to the marines
  11. tell its own story

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tell it like it is (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-tell it like it is.ogg.

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