"tall story" meaning in English

See tall story in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

IPA: /tɔːl ˈstɔːɹi/ [Received-Pronunciation], /tɔl ˈstɔɹi/ [General-American] Audio: En-us-tall story.oga [General-American] Forms: tall stories [plural]
Rhymes: -ɔːɹi Etymology: From tall (“exaggerated”) + story. Etymology templates: {{root|en|ine-pro|*del-|*dol-|*weyd-}}, {{compound|en|tall|story|notext=1|t1=exaggerated|type=endocentric}} tall (“exaggerated”) + story Head templates: {{en-noun}} tall story (plural tall stories)
  1. (idiomatic) Synonym of tall tale (“a tale or story which is fantastic and greatly exaggerated; also, an account of questionable veracity; a lie, an untruth”) Tags: idiomatic Synonyms: Banbury story of a cock and a bull, cock-and-bull story, fish story, traveller's tale, tall tale [synonym, synonym-of]
    Sense id: en-tall_story-en-noun-ihLU0GfW Categories (other): English endocentric compounds, English entries with incorrect language header

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for tall story meaning in English (2.9kB)

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      "expansion": "tall (“exaggerated”) + story",
      "name": "compound"
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  ],
  "etymology_text": "From tall (“exaggerated”) + story.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "tall stories",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
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  "head_templates": [
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      "expansion": "tall story (plural tall stories)",
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  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
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          "name": "English endocentric compounds",
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          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
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          "ref": "2023 November 24, Esther Addley, “Was Roman emperor Elagabalus really trans – and does it really matter?”, in The Guardian, →ISSN",
          "text": "Mary Beard, formerly professor of classics at Cambridge University, directed followers on X to her latest book, titled Emperor of Rome, which opens with a lengthy discussion of the “tall stories” told about Elagabalus.",
          "type": "quotation"
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      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Synonym of tall tale (“a tale or story which is fantastic and greatly exaggerated; also, an account of questionable veracity; a lie, an untruth”)"
      ],
      "id": "en-tall_story-en-noun-ihLU0GfW",
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          "tall tale",
          "tall tale#English"
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        [
          "tale",
          "tale#Noun"
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          "story#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "fantastic",
          "fantastic#Adjective"
        ],
        [
          "greatly",
          "greatly"
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        [
          "exaggerated",
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        ],
        [
          "account",
          "account#Noun"
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        [
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          "lie",
          "lie#Noun"
        ],
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      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) Synonym of tall tale (“a tale or story which is fantastic and greatly exaggerated; also, an account of questionable veracity; a lie, an untruth”)"
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "Banbury story of a cock and a bull"
        },
        {
          "word": "cock-and-bull story"
        },
        {
          "word": "fish story"
        },
        {
          "word": "traveller's tale"
        },
        {
          "extra": "a tale or story which is fantastic and greatly exaggerated; also, an account of questionable veracity; a lie, an untruth",
          "tags": [
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      "tags": [
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      "ipa": "/tɔl ˈstɔɹi/",
      "tags": [
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      "rhymes": "-ɔːɹi"
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      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/En-us-tall_story.oga",
      "tags": [
        "General-American"
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      "text": "Audio (GA)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "tall story"
}
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      "args": {
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      "expansion": "tall (“exaggerated”) + story",
      "name": "compound"
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  ],
  "etymology_text": "From tall (“exaggerated”) + story.",
  "forms": [
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      "form": "tall stories",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
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      "expansion": "tall story (plural tall stories)",
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  "pos": "noun",
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        "English endocentric compounds",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European",
        "English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *del-",
        "English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *dol-",
        "English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *weyd-",
        "English terms with IPA pronunciation",
        "English terms with audio links",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Rhymes:English/ɔːɹi",
        "Rhymes:English/ɔːɹi/2 syllables"
      ],
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          "ref": "2023 November 24, Esther Addley, “Was Roman emperor Elagabalus really trans – and does it really matter?”, in The Guardian, →ISSN",
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          "type": "quotation"
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      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Synonym of tall tale (“a tale or story which is fantastic and greatly exaggerated; also, an account of questionable veracity; a lie, an untruth”)"
      ],
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          "tall tale",
          "tall tale#English"
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          "tale",
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          "story#Noun"
        ],
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          "fantastic",
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        ],
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          "greatly"
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          "exaggerated",
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        ],
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          "questionable"
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          "lie",
          "lie#Noun"
        ],
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          "untruth"
        ]
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      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) Synonym of tall tale (“a tale or story which is fantastic and greatly exaggerated; also, an account of questionable veracity; a lie, an untruth”)"
      ],
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        {
          "word": "Banbury story of a cock and a bull"
        },
        {
          "word": "cock-and-bull story"
        },
        {
          "word": "fish story"
        },
        {
          "word": "traveller's tale"
        },
        {
          "extra": "a tale or story which is fantastic and greatly exaggerated; also, an account of questionable veracity; a lie, an untruth",
          "tags": [
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  "sounds": [
    {
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      "tags": [
        "Received-Pronunciation"
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    },
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      "ipa": "/tɔl ˈstɔɹi/",
      "tags": [
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    {
      "rhymes": "-ɔːɹi"
    },
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      "audio": "En-us-tall story.oga",
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      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/En-us-tall_story.oga",
      "tags": [
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      "text": "Audio (GA)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "tall story"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-01 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). 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.

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