Etymologically
Log in

tale

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 16 October 2026 at 12:43. This address is a permanent link to this version.
Changes in this edit History

Pronunciation

  • IPA: /teɪl/[1]

Etymology

It is Middle English tale, inherited from Old English talu (“story, narrative; account; talk”),[2][3][4] from Proto-Germanic *talō,[2][3][4] which is also the source of Old Frisian tale (“number, speech”), Old Saxon tala (“number”), Dutch taal (“speech, language”), Old High German zala (“number”) (German Zahl) and Old Norse tala (“speech, narrative, number”), and is related to Gothic 𐍄𐌰𐌻𐌶𐌾𐌰𐌽 (talzjan, “to teach”).[2][4][5] Watkins derives it from PIE Proto-Indo-European *del- (“to recount, count”),[4] and Barnhart compares Ancient Greek δόλος (dólos, “craftiness”).[2] It is related to tell and talk.[2][3][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old English talu, about 950 in the Lindisfarne Gospels;[2] the OED's earliest sense, the action of telling, discourse, talk, is from about 1000.[7]

Semantic evolution

In Old English talu also meant a deposition, accusation or reproach.[4] A narrative, the relation of a series of events, is from before 1060.[7] Etymonline suggests the original sense of the story meaning may have been an account of things in their due order.[4] Number or reckoning, a tally, is from about 1200,[4] and Hoad and NODE think this sense probably came from Old Norse;[3][6] if the etymology is right, it may be nearer to the prehistoric Germanic meaning.[4] Things told so as to betray a confidence, as in to tell tales, are from about 1350,[7] and a falsehood or lie is also an old sense.[8][9] An enumeration or list is a rare Old English sense, now obsolete.[7]

Timeline

  • c. 950 – Old English talu, in the Lindisfarne Gospels.[2]
  • c. 1000 – talk, discourse.[7]
  • before 1060 – a narrative, story.[7]
  • c. 1200 – a number, reckoning.[4]
  • c. 1350 – tales told out of school.[7]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. A story of real or imaginary events, especially an imaginative one.
  2. A malicious story or piece of gossip: to tell tales.
  3. A deliberate lie; a falsehood.
  4. (archaic) A tally or total; a number.

Word family

  • taleteller
  • folktale
  • talebearer
  • tattletale
  • telltale
  • fairy-tale

References

  1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  3. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  5. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  6. ^ a b Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  7. ^ a b c d e f g Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  8. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
  9. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins