Word.ws English Dictionary

thereby hangs a tale

thereby hangs a tale phrase: used to indicate that something requires a long story or explanation to fully understand.

Phrase

thereby hangs a tale

  1. Used to indicate that something requires a long story or explanation to fully understand.

Origin of thereby hangs a tale

Coined by William Shakespeare in 1623 in "As you Like it," act 2, scene 7: : And so from hour to hour we ripe and ripe, : And then from hour to hour we rot and rot, : And thereby hangs a tale.

Questions about thereby hangs a tale

What does thereby hangs a tale mean?
Thereby hangs a tale means used to indicate that something requires a long story or explanation to fully understand.
What part of speech is thereby hangs a tale?
Thereby hangs a tale is a phrase.

Words near thereby hangs a tale in the dictionary

  1. therebesides
  2. therebetween
  3. therebetwixt
  4. therebeyond
  5. thereby
  6. thereby hangs a tale
  7. thereckly
  8. theredown
  9. therefor
  10. therefore
  11. therefrom

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: thereby hangs a tale (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: “thereby hangs a tale.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/thereby_hangs_a_tale. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.