Word.ws English Dictionary

tell tales

tell tales verb: to lie, to be making false claims. Also the plural of tell tale.

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic) To lie, to be making false claims.
    • Don't listen to him; he's telling tales.
  2. (UK) To report someone for a wrongdoing.

Also used as

tell tales is also the plural of tell tale.

Forms of tell tales

third-person singular presenttells tales
present participletelling tales
past participletold tales
pasttold tales

Questions about tell tales

What does tell tales mean?
Tell tales means to lie, to be making false claims.
What part of speech is tell tales?
Tell tales is a verb.
What is the past tense of tell tales?
The past tense of tell tales is told tales.

Words near tell tales in the dictionary

  1. tell someone where to get off
  2. tell someone where to shove it
  3. tell stories
  4. tell story
  5. tell tale
  6. tell tales
  7. tell tales out of school
  8. tell the difference
  9. tell the time
  10. tell the truth
  11. tell the truth and shame the devil

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tell tales (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-tell tales.ogg.

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