Synonyms of tales

tales

noun

plural of tale

1

as in stories

a rumor or report of a personal or sensational nature

don't believe the tales you hear about our neighbor's kid

Synonyms & Similar Words

• stories
• whispers
• canards
• gossip
• talks
• fables
• lies
• scuttlebutt
• libels
• slanders
• tattles
• hearsay
• defamations
• dirty laundry
• dirt
• fibs
• falsehoods
• fairy tales
• prevarications
• talebearings
• fabrications
• untruths
• mendacities
• whoppers
• falsities

2

as in anecdotes

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 & Similar Words

• stories
• anecdotes
• yarns
• incidents
• episodes
• occurrences
• events
• happenings
• recitations
• recitals

3

as in lies

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 & Similar Words

• stories
• lies
• fables
• fibs
• fairy tales
• falsehoods
• prevarications
• fabrications
• untruths
• whoppers
• falsities
• mendacities
• ambiguities
• fictions
• distortions
• exaggerations
• half-truths
• taradiddles
• libels
• myths
• defamations
• slanders
• equivocations
• obliquities
• deceits
• nonsense
• perjuries
• misconceptions
• bluffs
• fallacies
• pretenses
• poses
• misinformation
• misrepresentations
• fraudulences
• misstatements
• duplicities
• falsifications
• canards
• dishonesties
• humbug
• jives
• misreports

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

• truths
• facts
• verities
• truisms
• confirmations
• substantiations
• verifications
• validations
• honesties
• authentications
• veracities

4

as in novellas

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 & Similar Words

• stories
• novellas
• narratives
• yarns
• short stories
• histories
• fables
• anecdotes
• jokes
• myths
• novelettes
• legends
• romances
• parables
• records
• annals
• reports
• folktales
• fairy tales
• chronicles
• exempla
• bedtime stories
• accounts

5

as in counts

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 & Similar Words

• counts
• scores
• tallies
• censuses
• amounts
• recounts
• totals
• sums
• wholes
• grosses

Example Sentences

Recent Examples of tales

In your garden-variety ghost story, the protagonist is generally the haunted, not the haunt, and the tales themselves are generally about how unhappy the protagonist is to find he or she is haunted. — Literary Hub, 30 Oct. 2026

Soon, tales of loss, memory and hopeful closure become central to the buildup, along with worried feelings of climbers’ loved ones. — Robert Abele, Los Angeles Times, 30 Oct. 2026

This narrative of devilish deals closely resembles the tales of Theophilus the Penitent and Faust. — Laura Payne, Encyclopedia Britannica, 30 Oct. 2026

Literature, theater and operas furthered her interest in spinning tales of her own. — Ashley Strickland, CNN Money, 29 Oct. 2026

In one of many tales told about their parties, Moore arrived by helicopter, while models in catsuits rappelled down the home’s exterior walls—a very Bond-style affair. — Tori Latham, Robb Report, 29 Oct. 2026

An unexplained light show over France And how better to kick off our Halloween skywatching tales than with a retelling of the strange event that terrified my entire family during a trip to France, two decades ago. — Anthony Wood, Space.com, 29 Oct. 2026

An Estonian named Kreuzwald translated these German tales into Estonian and published them under his own name; another Estonian, Eno Raud, swiped Kreuzwald’s stories, rewrote them a bit, and published them under his own name. — Georg Szalai, HollywoodReporter, 28 Oct. 2026

If Crystal and Ellis had stayed on that tack — tales about the house at 860 bound together by a sense of its loss — 860 might have the sturdiness of a tearjerker. — Jackson McHenry, Vulture, 22 Oct. 2026