Word.ws English Dictionary

tells on

tells on is the third-person singular simple present indicative of tell on.

Meaning of tell on

Verb

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

  1. (childish, usually) To inform on, to rat out; to tell a person in authority that someone else has done something wrong.
    • My sister told on me when I didn't go to school.
    Synonyms:
    bewray
  2. To cause visible strain to.
    • Years of drinking started to tell on his body.

Questions about tells on

What is tells on the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Tells on is the third-person singular simple present indicative of tell on.

Words near tells on in the dictionary

  1. tells it to the hand
  2. tells its own tale
  3. tells noses
  4. tells of
  5. tells off
  6. tells on
  7. tells someone where to get off
  8. tells someone where to shove it
  9. tells tales
  10. tells tales out of school
  11. tells the time

Source and license

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