tale
/teɪl/noun
1
- a fictitious or true narrative or story, especially one that is imaginatively recounted故事。
1.1
- a lie谎言。
2
- archaic a number or total〈古〉总数：
an exact tale of the dead bodies.
死尸的确切数目。
短语
a tale of a tub
- archaic an apocryphal story〈古〉荒诞的故事。
tell tales
- 见TELL1.
词源
Old English talu 'telling， something told'， of Germanic origin; related to Dutch taal 'speech' and German Zahl 'number'， also to TELL1. Sense 2 is probably from Old Norse.