untelling
untelling is the present participle and gerund of untell.
Meaning of untell
Verb
untell (third-person singular simple present untells, present participle untelling, simple past and past participle untold)
- To withdraw or retract (something told); to never have told.
- Narrative untells itself by multiplying itself into discontinuous "turns" that cannot be resolved into a continuous story.1993, Jack Selzer, Understanding scientific prose, page 54
- To undo or reverse the counting of; to count back.
- That Time could turn up his swift sandy glass, / To untell the days, and to redeem these hours.1607, Thomas Heywood, A Woman Killed with Kindness
Adjective
untelling (not comparable)
- That does not tell.
- My journal was a release of emotion and a description of senses to an untelling audience. The blank pages gave me permission to discuss anything and everything without required feedback.1994, Delores A. Gaut, Anne Boykin, Caring as Healing: Renewal Through Hope, page 178
Origin of untelling
See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.
From un- + telling.
Questions about untelling
- What does untelling mean?
- Untelling means that does not tell.
- What is untelling the present participle and gerund of?
- Untelling is the present participle and gerund of untell.
- What part of speech is untelling?
- Untelling is an adjective.
Words near untelling in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: untelling (page history and authors); untell (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: “untelling.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/untelling. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.