different between tell vs utter

English

Pronunciation

• (UK, US) enPR: t?l, IPA^(key): /t?l/, /t??/
• Rhymes: -?l

Etymology 1

From Middle English tellen (“to count, tell”), from Old English tellan (“to count, tell”), from Proto-Germanic *taljan?, *talzijan? (“to count, enumerate”), from Proto-Germanic *tal?, *tal? (“number, counting”), from Proto-Indo-European *dol- (“calculation, fraud”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian tälle (“to say; tell”), West Frisian telle (“to count”), West Frisian fertelle (“to tell, narrate”), Dutch tellen (“to count”), Low German tellen (“to count”), German zählen, Faroese telja. More at tale.

Verb

tell (third-person singular simple present tells, present participle telling, simple past and past participle told)

1. (transitive, archaic outside of idioms) To count, reckon, or enumerate.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, II.vii:

     And in his lap a masse of coyne he told, / And turned vpsidowne, to feede his eye / A couetous desire with his huge threasury.

   • 1875, Hugh MacMillan, The Sunday Magazine:

     Only He who made them can tell the number of the stars, and mark the place of each in the order of the one great dominant spiral.

2. (transitive) To narrate.
   • 2016, VOA Learning English (public domain)

     Tell her you’re here.

3. (transitive) To convey by speech; to say.
4. (transitive) To instruct or inform.
   • 1611, Bible (King James Version), Genesis xii. 18

     Why didst thou not tell me that she was thy wife?
5. (transitive) To order; to direct, to say to someone.
   • 1909, H. G. Wells, Ann Veronica

     She said she hoped she had not distressed him by the course she had felt obliged to take, and he told her not to be a fool.

   • Stability was restored, but once the re-entry propulsion was activated, the crew was told to prepare to come home before the end of their only day in orbit.

6. (intransitive) To discern, notice, identify or distinguish.

   • Captain Edward Carlisle, soldier as he was, martinet as he was, felt a curious sensation of helplessness seize upon him as he met her steady gaze, her alluring smile; he could not tell what this prisoner might do.

7. (transitive) To reveal.

8. (intransitive) To be revealed.
   • 1990, Stephen Coonts, Under Siege, 1991 Pocket Books edition, ?ISBN, p.409:

     Cherry looks old, Mergenthaler told himself. His age is telling. Querulous — that's the word. He's become a whining, querulous old man absorbed with trivialities.

9. (intransitive) To have an effect, especially a noticeable one; to be apparent, to be demonstrated.
   • 1859 John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

     Opinion ought [… to give] merited honour to every one, whatever opinion he may hold […] keeping nothing back which tells, or can be supposed to tell, in their favour.
10. (transitive) To use (beads or similar objects) as an aid to prayer.
11. (intransitive, childish) To inform someone in authority about a wrongdoing.

    I saw you steal those sweets! I'm going to tell!

12. (authorship, intransitive) To reveal information in prose through outright expository statement -- contrasted with show

    Maria rewrote the section of her novel that talked about Meg and Sage's friendship to have less telling and more showing.

Usage notes

• In dialects, other past tense forms (besides told) may be found, including tald/tauld (Scotland), tawld (Devonshire), teld (Yorkshire, Devonshire), telled (Northern England, Scotland, and in nonstandard speech generally), telt (Scotland, Geordie), tole (AAVE, Southern US, and some dialects of England), toll (AAVE), tolt (AAVE).
• In older forms of English, when the pronoun thou was in active use, and verbs used -est for distinct second-person singular indicative forms, the verb tell had the form tellest, and had toldest for its past tense.
• Similarly, when the ending -eth was in active use for third-person singular present indicative forms, the form telleth was used.

Conjugation

Synonyms

• (enumerate): count, number; see also Thesaurus:count
• (narrate): narrate, recount, relate
• (to instruct or inform): advise, apprise; See also Thesaurus:inform
• (reveal): disclose, make known; See also Thesaurus:divulge
• (inform someone in authority): grass up, snitch, tattle; See also Thesaurus:rat out

Antonyms

• (to instruct or inform): ask

Derived terms

Translations

Noun

tell (plural tells)

1. A reflexive, often habitual behavior, especially one occurring in a context that often features attempts at deception by persons under psychological stress (such as a poker game or police interrogation), that reveals information that the person exhibiting the behavior is attempting to withhold.
2. (archaic) That which is told; a tale or account.
   • April 4, 1743, Horace Walpole, letter to Sir Horace Mann

     I am at the end of my tell.

3. (Internet) A private message to an individual in a chat room; a whisper.

See also

• dead giveaway

Etymology 2

From Arabic ????? (tall, “hill, elevation”) or Hebrew ????? (tél, “hill”), from Proto-Semitic *tall- (“hill”).

Noun

tell (plural tells)

1. (archaeology) A hill or mound, originally and especially in the Middle East, over or consisting of the ruins of ancient settlements.

Norwegian Bokmål

Verb

tell

1. imperative of telle

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /??t?/, [??t?]
• (US) IPA^(key): /??t?/, [????]
• Rhymes: -?t?(?)

Etymology 1

From Old English ?tera, comparative of ?t (“out”). Compare outer.

Adjective

utter (not comparable)

1. (now poetic, literary) Outer; furthest out, most remote. [from 10th c.]
2. (obsolete) Outward. [13th–16th c.]
   • 1526, William Tyndale, trans. Bible, Matthew XXIII:

     Wo be to you scrybes and pharises ypocrites, for ye make clene the utter side off the cuppe, and off the platter: but within they are full of brybery and excesse.

   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, IV.10:

     So forth without impediment I past, / Till to the Bridges utter gate I came […] .

3. Absolute, unconditional, total, complete. [from 15th c.]

   utter ruin; utter darkness

   • 1708, Francis Atterbury, Fourteen Sermons Preach'd on Several Occasions : Preface

     They […] are utter strangers to all those anxious […] thoughts which […] disquiet mankind.

Synonyms

• see also Thesaurus:total

Derived terms

Translations

Etymology 2

Partly from out (adverb, verb), partly from Middle Dutch uteren.

Verb

utter (third-person singular simple present utters, present participle uttering, simple past and past participle uttered)

1. (transitive) To produce (speech or other sounds) with one's voice.

   Synonyms: let out, say, speak

   Don't you utter another word!

   • 1611, King James Version of the Bible, Proverbs 1.20,^[2]

     Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets:

   • 1748, Tobias Smollett, The Adventures of Roderick Random, London: J. Osborn, Volume 2, Chapter 50, p. 156,^[3]

     […] he made no other reply, for some time, than lifting up his eyes, clasping his hands, and uttering a hollow groan.

   • 1868, Louisa May Alcott, Little Women, Boston: Roberts Brothers, Volume 1, Chapter 17, p. 263,^[4]

     […] Laurie slyly pulled the parrot’s tail, which caused Polly to utter an astonished croak,
2. (transitive) To reveal or express (an idea, thought, desire, etc.) with speech.

   Synonyms: declare, say, tell

   • 1644, John Milton, Areopagitica, London, p. 35,^[5]

     Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.

   • 1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, Dublin: John Smith, Volume 1, Book 2, Chapter 6, p. 77,^[6]

     […] tho’ a few odd Fellows will utter their own Sentiments in all Places, yet much the greater Part of Mankind have enough of the Courtier to accommodate their Conversation to the Taste and Inclination of their Superiors.

   • 1871, George Eliot, Middlemarch, Edinburgh: William Blackwood, Volume 4, Part 2, Book 8, Chapter 83, p. 323,^[7]

     Each had been full of thoughts which neither of them could begin to utter.

   • 1959, Muriel Spark, Memento Mori, New York: Time, 1964, Chapter , p. 213,^[8]

     “Your master,” he declared, “has uttered a damnable lie about a dead friend of mine.”

   • 1995, Rohinton Mistry, A Fine Balance, Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, Part 11, p. 528,^[9]

     “Don’t worry about me,” he uttered with minimum lip movement.

3. (transitive, figuratively) To produce (a noise) (of an inanimate object).

   Synonyms: emit, let out

   Sally's car uttered a hideous shriek when she applied the brakes.

4. (transitive, obsolete) To spit or blow (something) out of one's mouth.
   • 1819, Washington Irving, “Rip van Winkle” in The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., London: John Murray, 3rd ed., 1820, Volume 1, p. 79,^[10]

     He looked in vain for the sage Nicholas Vedder, with his broad face, double chin, and fair long pipe, uttering clouds of tobacco smoke instead of idle speeches;

   • 1821, Charles Lamb, “The Old Benchers of the Inner Temple” in The London Magazine, Volume 4, No. 21, September 1821, p. 280,^[11]

     Four little winged marble boys used to play their virgin fancies, spouting out ever fresh streams from their innocent-wanton lips, in the square of Lincoln’s-inn […] Are the stiff-wigged living figures, that still flitter and chatter about that area, less gothic in appearance? or, is the splutter of their hot rhetoric one half so refreshing and innocent, as the little cool playful streams those exploded cherubs uttered?

5. (transitive, obsolete) To emit or give off (breath).
   • c. 1595, William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act IV, Scene 2,^[12]

     […] most dear actors, eat no onions nor garlic, for we are to utter sweet breath;

   • 1629, William Davenant, The Tragedy of Albovine, King of the Lombards, London: R. Moore, Act I, Scene 1,^[13]

     […] now the King forsakes

     The Campe, he must maintaine luxurious mouthes,

     Such as can vtter perfum’d breath,

6. (transitive, archaic) To shed (a tear or tears).
   • 1615, Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, Cupid’s Revenge, London: Josias Harrison, Act V, Scene 1,^[14]

     […] weepe now or neuer, thou hast made more sorrowes then we haue eyes to vtter.

   • 1928, Robert Byron, The Station: Travels to the Holy Mountain of Greece, Bloomsbury, 2010, Chapter 6,^[15]

     […] a mythological matron, in a classical helmet, uttering a tear at a rustic cross bound in blue and white ribbons and inscribed TO THE FALLEN—1912,

7. (transitive, obsolete) To offer (something) for sale; to sell.
   • 1577, Raphael Holinshed et al., Holinshed's Chronicles, London: John Hunne, The History of Ireland,^[16]

     […] certayne Merchants […] obteyned licence safely to arriue here in Ireland with their wares, and to vtter the same.

   • c. 1594, Romeo and Juliet, Act V, Scene 1,^[17]

     Such mortal drugs I have; but Mantua’s law

     Is death to any he that utters them.

   • 1605, Francis Bacon, The Advancement of Learning, London: Henry Tomes, Book 2, p. 72,^[18]

     […] at the Olimpian games […] some cam as Merchants to vtter their commodities,

   • 1722, Daniel Defoe, A Journal of the Plague Year, London: E. Nutt et al., p. 51,^[19]

     No infected Stuff [i.e. items made of cloth] to be uttered.

8. (transitive, obsolete) To put (currency) into circulation.

   Synonym: circulate

   • 1564, Proclamation of Elizabeth I of England dated November, 1564, London: Richard Jugge and John Cawood, 1565,^[20]

     […] there are […] forrayne peeces of golde, of the like quantitie and fashion (although of lesse value) lyke to an Englyshe Angell, brought hyther, and here vttered and payde for ten shyllynges of syluer, beyng for they lacke of wayght, and for the basenesse of the allay, not worth. vii. shillinges, to the great deceite and losse of the subiectes of this her Realme:

   • 1735, Jonathan Swift, Drapier’s Letters, Letter 3, in The Works of Jonathan Swift, Dublin: George Faulkner, Volume 4, p. 123,^[21]

     There is nothing remaining to preserve us from Ruin, but that the whole Kingdom should continue in a firm determinate Resolution never to receive or utter this FATAL Coin:

   • 1842, cited in Supplement to The Jurist, containing a Digest of All the Reported Cases […] published during the year 1842, p. 49,^[22]

     If two persons jointly prepare counterfeit coin, and then utter it in different shops, apart from each other, but in concert, and intending to share the proceeds, the utterings of each are the joint utterings of both, and they may be convicted jointly.

9. (transitive, obsolete) To show (something that has been hidden); to reveal the identity of (someone).
   • 1535, Miles Coverdale, Coverdale Bible, Genesis 45.1,^[23]

     […] there stode no man by him, whan Ioseph vttred him self vnto his brethren.

   • 1561, William Whittingham et al. (translators), Geneva Bible, Mark 3.12,^[24]

     And he [Jesus] sharpely rebuked them [the unclean spirits], to the end they shulde not vtter him.

10. (transitive, obsolete) To send or put (something) out.
    • 1548, Edward Hall, The Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Famelies of Lancastre [and] Yorke, London: Richard Grafton, Henry VI, year 37,^[25]

      As fier beyng enclosed in a strayte place, wil by force vtter his flamme […]

    • 1579, Edmund Spenser, The Shepheardes Calender, London: Hugh Singleton, “March,” Aegloga Tertia,^[26]

      Seest not thilke same Hawthorne studde,

      How bragly it beginnes to budde,

      And vtter his tender head?

Synonyms

Derived terms

Translations

Swedish

Etymology

From Old Norse otr, from Proto-Germanic *utraz, from Proto-Indo-European *udrós (“water-animal, otter”), from *wed- (“water”).

Noun

utter c

1. otter; a mammal of the family Mustelidae

Declension