What's the difference between ask and tell?

Ask


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To request; to seek to obtain by words; to petition; to solicit; -- often with of, in the sense of from, before the person addressed.
  • (v. t.) To require, demand, claim, or expect, whether by way of remuneration or return, or as a matter of necessity; as, what price do you ask?
  • (v. t.) To interrogate or inquire of or concerning; to put a question to or about; to question.
  • (v. t.) To invite; as, to ask one to an entertainment.
  • (v. t.) To publish in church for marriage; -- said of both the banns and the persons.
  • (v. i.) To request or petition; -- usually followed by for; as, to ask for bread.
  • (v. i.) To make inquiry, or seek by request; -- sometimes followed by after.
  • (n.) A water newt.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Here we have asked whether protection from blood-borne antigens afforded by the blood-brain barrier is related to the lack of MHC expression.
  • (2) In a debate in the House of Commons, I will ask Britain, the US and other allies to convert generalised offers of help into more practical support with greater air cover, military surveillance and helicopter back-up, to hunt down the terrorists who abducted the girls.
  • (3) Collins said she asked Sullivan several questions, including who the women were.
  • (4) People should ask their MP to press the government for a speedier response.
  • (5) Mike Ashley told Lee Charnley that maybe he could talk with me last week but I said: ‘Listen, we cannot say too much so I think it’s better if we wait.’ The message Mike Ashley is sending is quite positive, but it was better to talk after we play Tottenham.” Benítez will ask Ashley for written assurances over his transfer budget, control of transfers and other spheres of club autonomy, but can also reassure the owner that the prospect of managing in the second tier holds few fears for him.
  • (6) I ask a friend to have a stab at, “down at cafe that does us butties”, and he said: “Something to do with his ass?” “Whose arse?” He looked panicked.
  • (7) Of the five committees asked to develop bills, four have completed their work, and the Senate Finance Committee announced today that it will move forward next week.
  • (8) The Hamilton-Wentworth regional health department was asked by one of its municipalities to determine whether the present water supply and sewage disposal methods used in a community without piped water and regional sewage disposal posed a threat to the health of its residents.
  • (9) Considerate touches includes the free use of cruiser bicycles (the best method of tackling the Palm Springs main drag), home-baked cookies … and if you'd like to get married, ask the manager: he's a minister.
  • (10) An age- and education-matched group of women with no family history of FXS was asked to predict the seriousness of problems they might encounter were they to bear a child with a handicapping condition.
  • (11) For example, 75% of them were asked about their family life, marital status and children in interviews.
  • (12) Other than failing to get a goal, I couldn’t ask for anything more.” From Lambert’s perspective there was an element of misfortune about the first and third goals, with Willian benefitting from handy ricochets on both occasions.
  • (13) But because current donor contributions are not sufficient to cover the thousands of schools in need of security, I will ask in the commons debate that the UK government allocates more.
  • (14) He had been just asked to open their new town hall, in the hope he might donate a Shakespeare statue.
  • (15) The information about her father's semi-brainwashing forms an interesting backdrop to Malala's comments when I ask if she ever wonders about the man who tried to kill her on her way back from school that day in October last year, and why his hands were shaking as he held the gun – a detail she has picked up from the girls in the school bus with her at the time; she herself has no memory of the shooting.
  • (16) After an introductory training program, the students asked the patients arriving at the hospital out-patient clinic for permission to observe them throughout the attendance given.
  • (17) When asked why the streets of London were not heaving with demonstrators protesting against Russia turning Aleppo into the Guernica of our times, Stop the War replied that it had no wish to add to the “jingoism” politicians were whipping up against plucky little Russia .
  • (18) In each of the clinics I visit I ask how much the surrogates are paid.
  • (19) Gwendolen Morgan, the lawyer at Bindmans dealing with the case, said: "We have grave concerns about the decision to use this draconian power to detain our client for nine hours on Sunday – for what appear to be highly questionable motives, which we will be asking the high court to consider.
  • (20) A subgroup of 40 patients was asked to complete a brief survey on medical care information and satisfaction.

Tell


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To mention one by one, or piece by piece; to recount; to enumerate; to reckon; to number; to count; as, to tell money.
  • (v. t.) To utter or recite in detail; to give an account of; to narrate.
  • (v. t.) To make known; to publish; to disclose; to divulge.
  • (v. t.) To give instruction to; to make report to; to acquaint; to teach; to inform.
  • (v. t.) To order; to request; to command.
  • (v. t.) To discern so as to report; to ascertain by observing; to find out; to discover; as, I can not tell where one color ends and the other begins.
  • (v. t.) To make account of; to regard; to reckon; to value; to estimate.
  • (v. i.) To give an account; to make report.
  • (v. i.) To take effect; to produce a marked effect; as, every shot tells; every expression tells.
  • (n.) That which is told; tale; account.
  • (n.) A hill or mound.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Michael James, 52, from Tower Hamlets Three days after telling his landlord that the flat upstairs was a deathtrap, Michael James was handed an eviction notice.
  • (2) In platform shoes to emulate Johnson's height, and with the aid of prosthetic earlobes, Cranston becomes the 36th president: he bullies and cajoles, flatters and snarls and barks, tells dirty jokes or glows with idealism as required, and delivers the famous "Johnson treatment" to everyone from Martin Luther King to the racist Alabama governor George Wallace.
  • (3) Today’s figures tell us little about the timing of the first increase in interest rates, which will depend on bigger picture news on domestic growth, pay trends and perceived downside risks in the global economy,” he said.
  • (4) Anytime they feel parts of the Basic Law are not up to their current standards of political correctness, they will change it and tell Hong Kong courts to obey.
  • (5) "With hyperspectral imaging, you can tell the chemical content of a cake just by taking a photo of it.
  • (6) I think he had been saying all season that with three or four games to go he will tell us where we are.
  • (7) I can see you use humour as a defence mechanism, so in return I could just tell you that if he's massively rich or famous and you've decided you'll put up with it to please him, you'll eventually discover it's not worth it.
  • (8) Are you ready to vote?” is the battle cry, and even the most superficial of glances at the statistics tells why.
  • (9) But what they take for a witticism might very well be true; most of Ellis's novels tell more or less the same story, about the same alienated ennui, and maybe they really are nothing more than the fictionalised diaries of an unremarkably unhappy man.
  • (10) On Friday, a spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry appeared to confirm those fears, telling reporters that the joint declaration, a deal negotiated by London and Beijing guaranteeing Hong Kong’s way of life for 50 years, “was a historical document that no longer had any practical significance”.
  • (11) Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall tried to liven things up, but there are only so many ways to tell us to be nice to chickens.
  • (12) David Hamilton tells me: “The days of westerners leading expeditions to Nepal will pass.
  • (13) If Del Bosque really want to win this World Cup thingymebob, then he has got to tell Iker Casillas that the jig is up, correct?
  • (14) Will African film-makers tell those kind of films differently?
  • (15) July 7, 2016 Verified account A blue tick that tells you the user is either an A-list celebrity, a respected authority on an important subject or a BuzzFeed employee.
  • (16) The education secretary's wife, Sarah Vine, a columnist, said her son William, nine, and daughter Beatrice, 11, now realise how much their father is hated for his position in government because other children tell them in the playground.
  • (17) You can tell them that Deutsche Bank remains absolutely rock solid, given our strong capital and risk position.
  • (18) The debate certainly hit upon a larger issue: the tendency for people in positions of social and cultural power to tell the stories of minorities for them, rather than allowing minority communities to speak for themselves.
  • (19) In saying what he did, he was not telling any frequent flyer something they didn't already know, and he was not protesting about any newly adopted measures.
  • (20) Blight responded with a hypothetical, telling Ludlam if the ASD asked a foreign agency to get material about Australian citizens it could not access under Australian law, the IGIS would know about it and flag it in its annual report.