Word.ws English Dictionary

telling tales

telling tales is the present participle and gerund of tell tales.

Meaning of tell tales

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.

Questions about telling tales

What is telling tales the present participle and gerund of?
Telling tales is the present participle and gerund of tell tales.

Words near telling tales in the dictionary

  1. telling of
  2. telling off
  3. telling on
  4. telling someone where to get off
  5. telling someone where to shove it
  6. telling tales
  7. telling tales out of school
  8. telling the time
  9. telling the truth
  10. telling the truth and shaming the devil
  11. telling time

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: telling tales (page history and authors); 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.

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