tale

1 a rumor or report of a personal or sensational nature don't believe the tales you hear about our neighbor's kid Synonyms of tale canard, story, whisper Words Related to tale dirt, gossip, scuttlebutt, talebearing, talk, tattle; dirty laundry, dirty linen; defamation, libel, slander; hearsay; fable, fabrication, fairy tale, falsehood, falsity, fib, lie, mendacity, prevarication, untruth, whopper

2 a brief account of something interesting that happened especially to one personally asked Dad to tell once again the tale of how, as a kid, he broke his arm jumping out of a tree Synonyms of tale anecdote, story, yarnWords Related to tale episode, event, happening, incident, occurrence; recital, recitation

3 a statement known by its maker to be untrue and made in order to deceive told tall tales in an attempt to impress me with her supposedly upper-crust background Synonyms of tale fable, fabrication, fairy tale, falsehood, falsity, fib, mendacity, prevarication, story, lie, taradiddle (or tarradiddle), untruth, whopperWords Related to tale distortion, exaggeration, half-truth; ambiguity, equivocation, obliquity; defamation, libel, slander; perjury; bluff, fiction, pose, pretense (or pretence); humbug, jive, nonsense; canard, fallacy, misconception, myth; falsification, misinformation, misreport, misrepresentation, misstatement; deceit, deceitfulness, dishonesty, duplicity, fraudulenceNear Antonyms of tale fact, truism, verity; honesty, truthfulness, veracity; authentication, confirmation, substantiation, validation, verificationAntonyms of tale truth

4 a work with imaginary characters and events that is shorter and usually less complex than a novel the oft-told tale of Sleeping Beauty Synonyms of tale narrative, novelette, novella, short story, story, yarnWords Related to tale bedtime story; exemplum, fable, parable; anecdote, joke; fairy tale, folktale, legend, myth, romance; account, annals, chronicle, history, record, report

5 a total number obtained or recorded by noting each thing as it was being added when the tale of the dead from the disaster is announced, the city will be in shock Synonyms of tale census, count, tallyWords Related to tale score; amount, gross, sum, total, whole; recount