See tale as old as time in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
{
"etymology_text": "From the song \"Beauty and the Beast\" from the 1991 Disney animated film Beauty and the Beast.",
"head_templates": [
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"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "noun"
},
"expansion": "tale as old as time",
"name": "head"
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],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"_dis": "83 5 5 1 6",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "86 5 4 2 3",
"kind": "other",
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"parents": [],
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{
"_dis": "87 4 4 2 3",
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"text": "The story of Beauty and the Beast is a tale as old as time.",
"type": "example"
}
],
"glosses": [
"A story, subject, or theme so timeless and ageless that it can be used or retold in any time period."
],
"id": "en-tale_as_old_as_time-en-noun-5ZwXbqy9",
"links": [
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],
[
"ageless",
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],
[
"time period",
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]
]
},
{
"glosses": [
"An experience that has always been lived or felt across time."
],
"id": "en-tale_as_old_as_time-en-noun-jGZSxevC",
"links": [
[
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"experience"
]
]
},
{
"glosses": [
"A recurring event or concept that continuously repeats throughout history."
],
"id": "en-tale_as_old_as_time-en-noun-6dMubDoP",
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"raw_glosses": [
"(by extension) A recurring event or concept that continuously repeats throughout history."
],
"tags": [
"broadly"
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},
{
"categories": [
{
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"name": "English hyperboles",
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],
"glosses": [
"Something which is very old or everlasting."
],
"id": "en-tale_as_old_as_time-en-noun-H7mcInoe",
"links": [
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"old",
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[
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],
"raw_glosses": [
"(hyperbolic) Something which is very old or everlasting."
],
"tags": [
"excessive"
]
},
{
"categories": [],
"glosses": [
"A common or easily predictable recurring situation or scenario."
],
"id": "en-tale_as_old_as_time-en-noun-PtrtW2n4",
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"raw_glosses": [
"(informal, often humorous) A common or easily predictable recurring situation or scenario."
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],
"word": "tale as old as time"
}
{
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"etymology_text": "From the song \"Beauty and the Beast\" from the 1991 Disney animated film Beauty and the Beast.",
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"expansion": "tale as old as time",
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"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
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"categories": [
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"text": "The story of Beauty and the Beast is a tale as old as time.",
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],
"glosses": [
"A story, subject, or theme so timeless and ageless that it can be used or retold in any time period."
],
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"story",
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[
"subject",
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]
},
{
"glosses": [
"An experience that has always been lived or felt across time."
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"experience",
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]
]
},
{
"glosses": [
"A recurring event or concept that continuously repeats throughout history."
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"event",
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[
"concept",
"concept"
],
[
"history",
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],
"raw_glosses": [
"(by extension) A recurring event or concept that continuously repeats throughout history."
],
"tags": [
"broadly"
]
},
{
"categories": [
"English hyperboles"
],
"glosses": [
"Something which is very old or everlasting."
],
"links": [
[
"old",
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],
[
"everlasting",
"everlasting"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(hyperbolic) Something which is very old or everlasting."
],
"tags": [
"excessive"
]
},
{
"categories": [
"English humorous terms",
"English informal terms"
],
"glosses": [
"A common or easily predictable recurring situation or scenario."
],
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"predictable",
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"situation",
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"raw_glosses": [
"(informal, often humorous) A common or easily predictable recurring situation or scenario."
],
"tags": [
"humorous",
"informal",
"often"
]
}
],
"word": "tale as old as time"
}
Download raw JSONL data for tale as old as time meaning in English (2.0kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-09-16 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-09-02 using wiktextract (d6fca27 and 65e1673). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.