Telling
//ˈtɛlɪŋ// adj, noun, verb
adj, noun, verb ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 The act of narration. countable, uncountable
- 2 disclosing information or giving evidence about another wordnet
- 3 The disclosure of information. countable, uncountable
"There may he sit and smile, or creep among the ships, or moan and sigh round islands in his great content—the miser lord of wealth in gems and pearls beyond the telling of all fables."
- 4 informing by words wordnet
- 5 Counting, numbering. archaic, countable, uncountable
Show 2 more definitions
- 6 an act of narration wordnet
- 7 Ability to determine. countable, uncountable
""One white man." said Bill, after a brief inspection. "Out on his line, I s'pose, and there's no tellin' when he'll be back. So we won't wait. We'll just serve notice on him.""
Verb
- 1 present participle and gerund of tell form-of, gerund, participle, present
Adjective
- 1 Having force, or having a marked effect; weighty, effective.
"a telling blow"
- 2 Revealing information; bearing significance.
"a telling smile"
- 3 Serving to convince.
"telling evidence"
Adjective
- 1 producing a strong effect wordnet
- 2 disclosing unintentionally something concealed wordnet
- 3 powerfully persuasive wordnet
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"Being objective means not telling everybody whose side you are on."
Etymology
Gerund from the verb tell, from tell + -ing.
Related phrases
More for "telling"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.