untold

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English untold, also untald in the north,^[2] inherited from Old English unteald (“uncounted”),^{[3][4][5][6][7]} formed from Old English un- + teald, the past participle of tellan (“to count, tell”).^[4][5] It kept the original sense of tell, to count.^[5] Similar formations are Middle Dutch ongetellet, Dutch ongeteld, Middle High German ungezalt, German ungezählt and Old Norse útaliðr.^[3][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Not counted or reckoned: in Old English, in a passage warning that if a day is left uncounted, the whole course of the year goes wrong.^[7][3] Merriam-Webster dates the word to before the 12th century.^[4]

Semantic evolution

From "not counted" the word moved to "too many or too great to count", recorded from about 1400, so that untold wealth is wealth beyond reckoning.^[3][6] With plural nouns it meant "countless" from the 16th century, and with abstract nouns "unlimited" from 1781, in Cowper.^[3] The sense "not told, not related" arose separately from the later meaning of tell, to recount: Chaucer used it in the Parson's Tale about 1386.^[3][5] The original sense died out in the early 17th century;^[3][8] Merriam-Webster cites Shakespeare's let me pass untold for it.^[4] Skeat's Chaucer glossary records it in the sense uncounted.^[9]

Timeline

• Old English – unteald, not counted.^[3][7]
• c. 1340 – not enumerated; unspecified (obsolete by 1607).^[3]
• c. 1386 – not related or told, in Chaucer.^[3]
• c. 1400 – too great to be counted; immense.^[3]
• 1590 – not informed, in Spenser's Faerie Queene.^[3]
• 1781 – unmeasured, unlimited.^[3]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Too great or too many to be counted; vast: untold riches.^[10][4][3]
2. Too great to be described or expressed: untold misery.^[10][4]
3. Not told or related; kept secret: the untold story of the expedition.^[10][3]
4. (obsolete, Old English–1609) Not counted.^[3][4][8]

Related words

• tell
• tale

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
8. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Skeat, W. W., ed. (1894), The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, vol. VI: Glossarial Index, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins