tale

noun

ADJECTIVE

▪ long, rambling

▪ familiar

▪ amazing, bizarre, curious (esp. BrE), extraordinary, fantastic, magical, marvellous/marvelous, strange

▪ awful (esp. BrE), sad, sorry, terrible, tragic

▪

the sorry tale of his marriage breakdown

▪ chilling, gruesome, hair-raising, harrowing, horror, macabre

▪ lurid, sordid, tawdry

▪ dark

▪

a dark tale of sexual obsession

▪ mysterious, spooky

▪ funny, humorous, witty (esp. BrE)

▪ fascinating, interesting

▪ heart-warming

▪ simple

▪ fanciful, incredible, tall, unlikely (esp. BrE)

▪

a tall tale that would fool no one

▪ true

▪ old wives'

▪ coming-of-age, rags-to-riches

▪

the rags-to-riches tale of an orphan who becomes a star

▪ epic, heroic

▪

an epic tale of courage and heroism

▪ cautionary, moral, morality

▪ classic, folk, old, traditional

▪ childhood

▪ fairy (often figurative)

▪

Winning the French Open was a fairy-tale end to her career.

▪ gothic, romantic

▪ original

VERB + TALE

▪ narrate, recount, regale sb with, relate, tell (sb)

▪

She regaled us with tales of her wild youth.

▪ hear

▪ make up, spin, weave

▪ read, write

▪ begin

TALE + VERB

▪ begin

▪ unfold

▪ concern sb/sth, involve sb/sth

▪ be set in … 

▪

a tale set in 19th-century Moscow

▪ be based on sth

PREPOSITION

▪ tale about

▪

a tale about a hungry snake

▪ tale of

▪

tales of adventure

▪

the strange tale of the man who sold his hair

PHRASES

▪ a tale of woe (= about failure, bad luck, etc.)

▪ (have) a tale to tell

▪

Each of the survivors had a terrible tale to tell.

▪ tell tales (= to say things about sb that are untrue or that they would prefer to be secret) (BrE)