TALE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Tale

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noun

Tael n. (Written also tale) A denomination of money, in China, worth nearly six shillings sterling, or about a dollar and forty cents; also, a weight of one ounce and a third.

Tale n. See Tael.

Tale n.

That which is told; an oral relation or recital; any rehearsal of what has occured; narrative; discourse; statement; history; story. "The tale of Troy divine." "In such manner rime is Dante's tale." "We spend our years as a tale that is told."

A number told or counted off; a reckoning by count; an enumeration; a count, in distinction from measure or weight; a number reckoned or stated. "The ignorant,... who measure by tale, and not by weight." "And every shepherd tells his tale, Under the hawthorn in the dale." "In packing, they keep a just tale of the number."

(Law) A count or declaration. (Obs.)

To tell tale of, to make account of. (Obs.) "Therefore little tale hath he told Of any dream, so holy was his heart."

Synonyms: Anecdote; story; fable; incident; memoir; relation; account; legend; narrative.

verb

Tale v. i. To tell stories. (Obs.)

See images of 'Tale'

Etymology of 'Tale'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Tale" Quotes from Famous Books

... can be no doubt that this circumstance will always secure to them a preponderating influence over the militia. In reading many of the publications against the Constitution, a man is apt to imagine that he is perusing some ill-written tale or romance, which instead of natural and agreeable images, exhibits to the mind nothing but frightful and distorted shapes "Gorgons, hydras, and chimeras dire''; discoloring and disfiguring whatever it represents, and transforming everything it touches ...

— The Federalist Papers

... Moineau, and a lanky, sneaking, turnip-complexioned under-usher, who used to write execrable verses to the sickly housemaid, and borrow half-crowns of the simple wench, wherewith to buy pomatum to plaster his thin, lank hair. He was a known sneak, and a suspected tell-tale. The booby fell a-crying in a dark corner, and we took him with his handkerchief to his eyes. Out of the respect that we bore our French and Latin masters, we gave them their liberty, the door being set ajar for that purpose; but we reserved the usher, ...

— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... her uncle—the carriage in which he had so often been seated by her side; he would not, he could not pass her by without one word. She deceived herself. His majesty was laughing at some merry tale, by which he was so much engrossed that he rode on without even bestowing a look upon the gilded coach and ...

— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott

... for every conceivable thing that could or might be amiss, Don Anastasio's steward led them into the sala, a long front room, the hacendado's hall of state. To all appearances it had not been so used in many years, but the old furnishing of some former Spanish owner still told the tale of coaches before the colonnade outside and of hidalgo guests within the great house. There was the stately sofa of honor flanked by throne-like armchairs, with high-backed ones next in line, all once ...

— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle

... every page I have to pull myself together to remind myself that it is not of the Right Honorable Sir Robert Maurice, Bart., M.P., that I am telling the tale—any one can do that—but of a certain Englishman who wrote Sardonyx, to the everlasting joy and pride of the land of his fathers—and of a certain Frenchman who wrote Berthe aux grands pieds, and moved his mother-country to such delight of tears and ...

— The Martian • George Du Maurier

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