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 canard, story, whisper Related Words 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 anecdote, story, yarnRelated Words 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 fable, fabrication, fairy tale, falsehood, falsity, fib, mendacity, prevarication, story, lie, taradiddle (or tarradiddle), untruth, whopperRelated Words 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 fact, truism, verity; honesty, truthfulness, veracity; authentication, confirmation, substantiation, validation, verificationAntonyms 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 narrative, novelette, novella, short story, story, yarnRelated Words 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 census, count, tallyRelated Words score; amount, gross, sum, total, whole; recount