tell it to the marines
"tell-it-to-the-marines" is a 18-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“tell it to the marines” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a phrase. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 22
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - I do not believe what you said.
Corpus desk
Index EN-tell-it-to-the-marines · tell it to the marines · English
tell it to the marines · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 22 letters
- VOW-7 7 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "T" 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 | tell it to the marines |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Phrase |
| Letters | 22 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “tell it to the marines” in English
Rare enough to double-check
tell it to the marines is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as aphrase. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "I do not believe what you said.".
No misspelling variants are generated for tell it to the marines in our index, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: Unknown, with many apocryphal suggestions. The correct English form is tell it to the marines, spelled T-E-L-L- -I-T- -T-O- -T-H-E- -M-A-R-I-N-E-S.
Definition
- 1I do not believe what you said.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how tell it to the marines appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
William. No palaver! tell it to the marines. What, tacking and double tacking! Come to what you want to say at once.
I don’t believe the story you have been telling me, either, and think it far more likely that you are hiding from justice on account of some devil’s work you have been engaged in. Bah! Tell your story to the marines!
Etymology
Unknown, with many apocryphal suggestions.
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.