telly

/ˈtɛli/

telly noun: television.

Image: Asanagi, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

telly (countable and uncountable, plural tellies or (nonstandard) tellys)

(Commonwealth, Ireland, UK, colloquial) Television.
- Not much on telly tonight, as usual!
- You're from telly!2007 August 24, Graham Linehan, The IT Crowd, Season 2, Episode 1
(Commonwealth, Ireland, UK, colloquial) A television set.
- We've got a new flat-screen telly.
(Commonwealth, Ireland, UK, colloquial) Telegraph.
(Commonwealth, Ireland, UK, colloquial) Telephone.
(Commonwealth, Ireland, UK, colloquial) Teleport.
(Commonwealth, Ireland, UK, colloquial) Telecommunication.

Noun (2)

telly (plural tellies)

(Canada, Commonwealth, Ireland, UK, US, colloquial) A hotel or motel.
- I'm staying at the telly this weekend.

Adjective

telly (comparative more telly, superlative most telly)

(Commonwealth, Ireland, UK, colloquial, informal) Inclined to telling (by explicitly stating facts), instead of showing (by conveying an impression so that events are described in the narrative).
- I think my problem with it is that it's
  a) a little "telly" not "showy" in comparison to the rest […]1999 November 21, sophie, “Squealer : first revision”, in alt.arts.poetry.comments (Usenet)
- There's a way to make this more showy and less telly. It's like you're in a hurry to get on with the rest of the story.2003 September 19, Patrick Null, “Failed Sept Challenge? (1409 words)”, in alt.fiction.original (Usenet)

telly meaning in Sinhala and Thai

telly in Sinhala

television (medium) — see also television: ටෙලි ṭeli
television set — see also television: ටෙලි ṭeli

telly in Thai

television (medium) — see also television: ทีวี tii-wii

Examples of telly in a sentence

[...] they were all in agreement: this stuff had to be on the telly.2021 June 30, Tim Dunn, “How We Made... Secrets of the London Underground”, in Rail, number 934, page 48:
story is too, too telly; need at least 3 showy scenes to improve showing:telling ratio2009 May 18, @kimmcgowan, Twitter, archived from the original on 18 Jul 2024:
Six of Crows is very telly and little showy.2016 February 12, Kelly, “Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo”, in Diva Booknerd, archived from the original on 18 Jul 2024:
The only other objection I have—and again, it’s minor—is that the very last chapter feels very “telly” and rushed.2019 May 26, Chautona Havig, “This Book Gives New Meaning to “The Romance of the Rails””, in Chautona.com, archived from the original on 18...

All 23 example sentences with telly

Synonyms of telly

tube
TV

Forms of telly

Noun
plural	tellies
alternative form	tele
plural (nonstandard)	tellys
Adjective
comparative	more telly
superlative	most telly

Origin of telly

Shortened form of tele(vision) + -y.

Shortened form of (ho)tel and/or (mo)tel + -y.

From tell + -y, related to the writing advice show, don't tell.

Words formed from telly

telly tennis

Words that rhyme with telly

15 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about telly

What does telly mean?: Telly means television.
What is telly in Sinhala?: Telly in Sinhala is ටෙලි (ṭeli). See Telly meaning in Sinhala.
How do you use telly in a sentence?: [...] they were all in agreement: this stuff had to be on the telly.
What part of speech is telly?: Telly can be a noun or an adjective.
How do you pronounce telly?: Telly is pronounced /ˈtɛli/.
What is the plural of telly?: The plural of telly is tellies.

Words near telly in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: telly (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: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-telly.wav.

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