different between discover vs tell

English

Alternative forms

• discovre (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English discoveren, from Old French descovrir, from Late Latin discoper?re < discooperi?, discooper?re, from Latin dis- + cooperi?.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /d?s?k?v?/
• (Northern England) IPA^(key): /d?s?k?v?/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /d?s?k?v?/
• Rhymes: -?v?(?)
• Hyphenation: dis?cov?er

Verb

discover (third-person singular simple present discovers, present participle discovering, simple past and past participle discovered)

1. To find or learn something for the first time.
2. (transitive, obsolete) To remove the cover from; to uncover (a head, building etc.).
3. (transitive, now rare) To expose, uncover.

4. (transitive, chess) To create by moving a piece out of another piece's line of attack.

5. (law, transitive) To question (a person) as part of discovery in a lawsuit.
6. (transitive, archaic) To reveal (information); to divulge, make known.
   • 1625, Francis Bacon, Of Adversity

     Prosperity doth best discover vice; but adversity doth best discover virtue.

7. (transitive, obsolete) To reconnoitre, explore (an area).

   • they seyde the same, and were aggreed that Sir Clegis, Sir Claryon, and Sir Clement the noble, that they sholde dyscover the woodys, bothe the dalys and the downys.

8. (obsolete) To manifest without design; to show; to exhibit.
   • 1871, Charles John Smith}}, Synonyms Discriminated

     The youth discovered a taste for sculpture.

Synonyms

• (expose something previously covered): expose, reveal, uncover
• (find something for the first time): come across, find

Antonyms

• (expose something previously covered): conceal, cover, cover up, hide

Derived terms

• discovery
• discovered attack
• discovered check

Translations

See also

• invent
• detect
• find
• stumble upon

Anagrams

• codrives, discovre, divorces, divorcés

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