tell on

phrasal verb

told on; telling on; tells on
1
informal : to tell someone in authority about the bad behavior or actions of (someone else)
Please don't tell on me.
2
: to have a noticeable effect on (someone or something)
The stress began to tell on her face/health.

Examples of tell on in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web
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Carrasco said Gilbert prosecutors were told on July 30 that the County Attorney's Office was going to surrender to Doran's argument that the breath test results should be excluded as evidence since Pennington admitted to drinking. Elena Santa Cruz, AZCentral.com, 27 Sep. 2025 Forty-five years later, Cottrell's story was told on Long Lost Family, with the team discovering that her biological son, Paul Clarke, a university lecturer, was still living in Liverpool and had been married to his partner, Owen, for 20 years. Becca Longmire, PEOPLE, 25 Sep. 2025 The pressure of perfection starts to tell on Redford’s character, Paul, who winds up drunk, in Washington Square Park, in broad daylight, tipping garbage over himself. Anthony Lane, New Yorker, 18 Sep. 2025 Bejo will play Alice Guy Blaché in Alice, the first time the visionary’s story has been told on screen. Max Goldbart, Deadline, 10 Sep. 2025 See All Example Sentences for tell on

Cite this Entry

“Tell on.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tell%20on. Accessed 9 Oct. 2025.

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