What's the difference between tale and tell?

Tale


Definition:

  • (n.) See Tael.
  • (v. i.) That which is told; an oral relation or recital; any rehearsal of what has occured; narrative; discourse; statement; history; story.
  • (v. i.) A number told or counted off; a reckoning by count; an enumeration; a count, in distinction from measure or weight; a number reckoned or stated.
  • (v. i.) A count or declaration.
  • (v. i.) To tell stories.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) There were soon tales of claimants dying after having had money withdrawn, but the real administrative problem was the explosion of appeals, which very often succeeded because many medical problems were being routinely ignored at the earlier stage.
  • (2) Her story is an incredible tale of triumph over tragedy: a tormented childhood during China's Cultural Revolution, detention and forced exile after exposing female infanticide – then glittering success as the head of a major US technology firm.
  • (3) Such tales of publicly subsidised private profits very much fit with the wider picture of relations between the City and the nation.
  • (4) The curiously double nature of the virgin in this tale, her purity versus her duplicity, seems unquestionably related to the infantile split mother, as elucidated by Klein--a connection explored in an earlier paper.
  • (5) Mr Bae stars in a popular drama, Winter Sonata, a tale of rekindled puppy love that has left many Japanese women hankering for an age when their own men were as sensitive and attentive as the Korean actor.
  • (6) The fairytales – which have been distributed by leaflet to universities around Singapore – include versions of Cinderella, the Three Little Pigs, Rapunzel and Snow White, each involving a reworked tale that relates to fertility, sex or marriage, and a resulting moral.
  • (7) Tales invites you to be straight or gay or a bit of both, or even a 93-year-old transsexual.
  • (8) The disappointing weather at Easter left beaches deserted but some Britons, who were determined to enjoy the outdoors this time round, have already had their plans thwarted by the weather, taking to websites such as ukcampsite.co.uk to swap tales of woe, such as farmers calling to cancel bookings because sites were waterlogged.
  • (9) He says there are many optimistic tales to tell – migrant families, he says, are helping to drive up standards in local schools – but such stories tend to get lost in an online world that has precious little interest in them.
  • (10) "We truly are living through a tale of two Britains; while those at the top of the tree may be benefiting from the green shoots of economic recovery, life on the ground for the poorest is getting tougher."
  • (11) We're not just disembodied wombs in jars, like in Tales of the Unexpected.
  • (12) He spent his day with children who could not speak or hear, and so I could hardly expect him to bring home any interesting tales.
  • (13) What goes on in The Handmaid’s Tale [the overthrow of the US government by a theocratic dictatorship that suppresses the rights of women] is actually confined to what used to be the United States.
  • (14) When Japan was finally opened to western influence by Commodore Perry in 1854, Shakespeare's works – via Lamb's Tales – followed closely behind.
  • (15) Today Savina said she did not think her experience was a cautionary tale for journalists working on the Lebedev-owned Evening Standard, who might be anxious about their jobs.
  • (16) Mood Indigo (18 July) Arguably the most French movie ever made, Romain Duris and Audrey Tautou are quite adorable as fairy tale lovers in Michel Gondry's adaptation of Boris Vian's Froth on the Daydream.
  • (17) McQueen told this tale several times – the words varied from “McQueen was here” to more profane messages, between tellings – and so, years later, Anderson & Sheppard asked the prince’s valet for the suits of that era back, in order to examine the linings.
  • (18) No true evangelical ought to be tempted to give such tales any credence whatsoever, no matter how popular they become,” Johnson wrote.
  • (19) Photograph: Getty So that was the grand import of the producer’s vision, realised on an unprecedented scale and to eventual rightful acclaim: despite Gagarin and the rest, Americans in particular (and then Australia, and Britain) became transfixed by all the unfolding tales and testimonies.
  • (20) Unlike a similar tale across Stanley Park recently, when Kevin Mirallas ousted Leighton Baines and missed from the spot, Balotelli coolly sent Cenk Gonen the wrong way and Liverpool were reprieved.

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.