tall tale
US us
/ˌtɑːl ˈteɪl/ uk
/ˌtɔːl ˈteɪl/ (also mainly UK tall story)Meaning of tall tale in English
(Definition of tall tale from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press)
tall tale | American Dictionary
Examples of tall tale
tall tale
From tall tale, to dream, to waking reality, it makes a return journey through various unstable frames to find the "real spectre of the antique" at last.
From the Cambridge English Corpus
But it was impossible to separate those whom one suspected were telling a tall tale from those who were genuinely unable to raise the extra money.
From the
Hansard archive
Example from the Hansard archive. Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0
Her winning tall tale was about how the ozone layer became damaged, ice caps melted and people had to be taken to work on camels.
It's a toughly told, very tall tale, one of the best escape (and escapist) movies of the season.
A tall tale is a story with unbelievable elements, related as if it were true and factual.
The book was autobiographical in nature, but likely would fall into the category of tall tale.
In addition to this, he is excessively superstitious, often to the extent of believing every myth, legend, tall tale, etc. to be literally true.
Most of his books are considered to fit well in the tall tale category.
How far you get through this tall tale of a thriller before you give up and howl is a matter of personal taste.
He garnered headlines for his tall tale about fighting a grizzly bear.
Each and every participating speaker is given three to five minutes to give a short speech of a tall tale nature, and is then judged according to several factors.
The story was originally a tall tale to entertain delegates at a scientific conference on family planning; although it was later repeated as truth, it has no known historical basis.
It is no good fobbing off the farmers of this country with tall tales about quotas, prohibitions and restrictions if you cannot carry them out.
From the
Hansard archive
Example from the Hansard archive. Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0
Does he agree that it is offensive when criminals pocket profits by telling tall tales to tabloids, thus gaining from their ill-gotten actions and badly written memoirs?
From the
Hansard archive
Example from the Hansard archive. Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0
As such, many of the stories told about them have the aura of tall tales.
These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.
