told
/təʊld/verb
told is spelled T-O-L-D: 4 letters and one syllable. It appears 347 times per million words in written English, the 263rd most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a verb, told means “simple past and past participle of tell” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).
How many letters and syllables are in told?
| Letters | 4: T-O-L-D |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 347 times per million words; the 263rd most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Rhymes with | |
| Same letters |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is told?
Told appears 347 times per million words in written English, the 263rd most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce told?
- UK /təʊld/
- UK [ˈtʰɔʊ(ɫ)d]
- UK [ˈtʰɒʊ(ɫ)d]
Told has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Pvanp7-told.wav, En-us-told.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with told?
9 words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as told from its last stressed vowel (/əʊld/, British pronunciation):
Spelled with the same letters in another order: dolt.
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of told
- telled
- telt
- tol'
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does told mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
verb
- 1
simple past and past participle of tell
A tale is but half told, if only one person tells it.
noun
- 1
Acronym of take-off and landing data
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Where does told come from?
From Middle English tolde, talde (first and third person singular preterite), from Old English tealde (first and third person singular preterite), from Proto-Germanic *talid-, preterite stem of Proto-Germanic *taljaną (“to count; tell”), equivalent to tell + -ed.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).