"tell a story" meaning in English

See tell a story in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Forms: tells a story [present, singular, third-person], telling a story [participle, present], told a story [participle, past], told a story [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|<,,told>}} tell a story (third-person singular simple present tells a story, present participle telling a story, simple past and past participle told a story)
  1. (literally, ambitransitive) To communicate a story in some way. Tags: ambitransitive, literally
    Sense id: en-tell_a_story-en-verb-p3UsXQVW Categories (other): Talking Disambiguation of Talking: 31 38 31
  2. (figuratively, intransitive, poetic) To display qualities which hint at or convey a past or history which is not explicitly told. Tags: figuratively, intransitive, poetic
    Sense id: en-tell_a_story-en-verb-5g7qiYAI Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries, Talking Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 8 84 8 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 10 80 10 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 8 84 8 Disambiguation of Talking: 31 38 31
  3. To lie; to tell a lie
    Sense id: en-tell_a_story-en-verb-6pLljMEJ Categories (other): Talking Disambiguation of Talking: 31 38 31

Inflected forms

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "tells a story",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "telling a story",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "told a story",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "told a story",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "<,,told>"
      },
      "expansion": "tell a story (third-person singular simple present tells a story, present participle telling a story, simple past and past participle told a story)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "31 38 31",
          "kind": "other",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Talking",
          "orig": "en:Talking",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To communicate a story in some way."
      ],
      "id": "en-tell_a_story-en-verb-p3UsXQVW",
      "links": [
        [
          "communicate",
          "communicate"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(literally, ambitransitive) To communicate a story in some way."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "ambitransitive",
        "literally"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "8 84 8",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "10 80 10",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "8 84 8",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "31 38 31",
          "kind": "other",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Talking",
          "orig": "en:Talking",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              20,
              40
            ]
          ],
          "text": "Every person's eyes tell their own story.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              49,
              61
            ]
          ],
          "text": "The bullet holes in the walls of these buildings tell a story of a more tumultuous time...",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To display qualities which hint at or convey a past or history which is not explicitly told."
      ],
      "id": "en-tell_a_story-en-verb-5g7qiYAI",
      "links": [
        [
          "qualities",
          "quality"
        ],
        [
          "convey",
          "convey"
        ],
        [
          "past",
          "past"
        ],
        [
          "history",
          "history"
        ],
        [
          "explicitly",
          "explicitly"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(figuratively, intransitive, poetic) To display qualities which hint at or convey a past or history which is not explicitly told."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "figuratively",
        "intransitive",
        "poetic"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "31 38 31",
          "kind": "other",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Talking",
          "orig": "en:Talking",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              134,
              152
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "1960 July 11, Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, Philadelphia, Pa.; New York, N.Y.: J[oshua] B[allinger] Lippincott Company, →OCLC:",
          "text": "Jem gulped like a goldfish, hunched his shoulders and twitched his torso. “He’s goin‘ like that, only not like he means to.”\n“Are you telling me a story, Jem Finch?” Calpurnia’s voice hardened.\n“No Cal, I swear I’m not.”",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To lie; to tell a lie"
      ],
      "id": "en-tell_a_story-en-verb-6pLljMEJ",
      "links": [
        [
          "lie",
          "lie"
        ],
        [
          "tell a lie",
          "tell a lie"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "tell a story"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English verbs",
    "Pages with 1 entry",
    "Pages with entries",
    "en:Talking"
  ],
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "tells a story",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "telling a story",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "told a story",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "told a story",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "<,,told>"
      },
      "expansion": "tell a story (third-person singular simple present tells a story, present participle telling a story, simple past and past participle told a story)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English intransitive verbs",
        "English transitive verbs"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To communicate a story in some way."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "communicate",
          "communicate"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(literally, ambitransitive) To communicate a story in some way."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "ambitransitive",
        "literally"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English intransitive verbs",
        "English poetic terms",
        "English terms with usage examples"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              20,
              40
            ]
          ],
          "text": "Every person's eyes tell their own story.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              49,
              61
            ]
          ],
          "text": "The bullet holes in the walls of these buildings tell a story of a more tumultuous time...",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To display qualities which hint at or convey a past or history which is not explicitly told."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "qualities",
          "quality"
        ],
        [
          "convey",
          "convey"
        ],
        [
          "past",
          "past"
        ],
        [
          "history",
          "history"
        ],
        [
          "explicitly",
          "explicitly"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(figuratively, intransitive, poetic) To display qualities which hint at or convey a past or history which is not explicitly told."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "figuratively",
        "intransitive",
        "poetic"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              134,
              152
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "1960 July 11, Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, Philadelphia, Pa.; New York, N.Y.: J[oshua] B[allinger] Lippincott Company, →OCLC:",
          "text": "Jem gulped like a goldfish, hunched his shoulders and twitched his torso. “He’s goin‘ like that, only not like he means to.”\n“Are you telling me a story, Jem Finch?” Calpurnia’s voice hardened.\n“No Cal, I swear I’m not.”",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To lie; to tell a lie"
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "lie",
          "lie"
        ],
        [
          "tell a lie",
          "tell a lie"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "tell a story"
}

Download raw JSONL data for tell a story meaning in English (2.4kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-08-20 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-08-05 using wiktextract (872fc7b and 4deed51). 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.