tall tale
/tɔːl ˈteɪl/
"tall-tale" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“tall 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
- 9
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A tale or story which is fantastic and greatly exaggerated; also, an account of questionable veracity; a lie, an untruth.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | tall tale |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /tɔːl ˈteɪl/ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “tall tale” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
tall tale is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed /tɔːl ˈteɪl/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A tale or story which is fantastic and greatly exaggerated; also, an account of questionable veracity; a lie, an untruth.".
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for tall tale, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
Etymologically, the entry records: From tall (“exaggerated”) + tale. The correct English form is tall tale, spelled T-A-L-L- -T-A-L-E.
Definition
- 1A tale or story which is fantastic and greatly exaggerated; also, an account of questionable veracity; a lie, an untruth.
Etymology
From tall (“exaggerated”) + tale.
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.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “tall tale”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is T-A-L-L- -T-A-L-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /tɔːl ˈteɪl/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.