old wives' tale
/ɔld ˈwaɪvz teɪl/
"old-wives-tale" is a 12-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“old wives' tale” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 15
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A supposed truth that has been passed down by word of mouth
Corpus desk
Index EN-old-wives-tale · old wives' tale · English
old wives' tale · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 15 letters
- VOW-5 5 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "O" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | old wives' tale |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ɔld ˈwaɪvz teɪl/ |
| Letters | 15 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “old wives' tale” in English
Rare enough to double-check
old wives' tale is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed /ɔld ˈwaɪvz teɪl/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
Zero misspellings are on record for old wives' tale in our index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Etymologically, the entry records: In this context, the word “wives” means “women” and not “married women,” retaining the original sense of Old English wīf, which meant “woman” as well as “wife”. The phrase could be a reformation of Old English ealdra cwēna spell or a calque of Latin anīlis … The correct English form is old wives' tale, spelled O-L-D- -W-I-V-E-S-'- -T-A-L-E.
Definition
- 1A supposed truth that has been passed down by word of mouth
- 2A rumour, myth or superstition; something which is almost certainly untrue, despite acceptance by many.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how old wives' tale appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
According to the old wives' tales that are related about this race of genii who inhabit Iceland and its vicinity, they have a political form of government modelled after the same pattern as that which the inhabitants themselves are under.
Etymology
In this context, the word “wives” means “women” and not “married women,” retaining the original sense of Old English wīf, which meant “woman” as well as “wife”. The phrase could be a reformation of Old English ealdra cwēna spell or a calque of Latin anīlis fābula, both literally “old women’s story.”
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.