tell tales
"tell-tales" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“tell tales” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 10
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To lie, to be making false claims.
Corpus desk
Index EN-tell-tales · tell tales · English
tell tales · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 10 letters
- VOW-3 3 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 tales |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| Letters | 10 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “tell tales” in English
Rare enough to double-check
tell tales is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
tell tales doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. This headword has no recorded confusable partner, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
This entry carries no recorded etymology, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct English form is tell tales, spelled T-E-L-L- -T-A-L-E-S.
Definition
- 1To lie, to be making false claims.
- 2To report someone for a wrongdoing.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how tell tales appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Don't listen to him; he's telling tales.
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.