different between shout vs tell

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?a?t/
• (Canada) IPA^(key): /???t/
• Rhymes: -a?t

Etymology 1

From Middle English shouten. Further origin uncertain. Possibly related to Middle English shooten (“to shoot (out)”) or from or akin to Old Norse skúta (“to chide, scold”), Old Norse skúti, skúta (“a taunt”). See also the second, rare sense of the verb scout (“to reject with contempt”).

Noun

shout (plural shouts)

1. A loud burst of voice or voices; a violent and sudden outcry, especially that of a multitude expressing joy, triumph, exultation, anger, or great effort.

2. (Britain, Australia, New Zealand, slang) A round of drinks in a pub; the turn to pay the shot or scot; an act of paying for a round of drinks.
   • 1984, Keri Hulme, The Bone People, page 290,

     “I?ll get my wine though,” taking out her wallet.

     “No. This is my shout,” holding up his hand as though to ward her money off.

   • 2006, Lily Allen, Knock 'Em Out

     Cut to the pub on a lads night out,

     Man at the bar cos it was his shout

   • 2008, George Papaellinas, The Trip: An Odyssey, re.press, Australia, page 6,

     It was always my shout down the pub with Theo.

3. (Britain, Australia, slang) A call-out for an emergency services team.
   • 2017, Dave Boulter, London's Emergency Service Vehicles

     Yet another ambulance on a shout enters Parliament Square.

4. (informal) A greeting, name-check or other mention, for example on a radio or TV programme.

   Synonym: shout out

Translations

Verb

shout (third-person singular simple present shouts, present participle shouting, simple past and past participle shouted)

1. (intransitive) To utter a sudden and loud cry, as in joy, triumph, exultation or anger, or to attract attention, to animate others, etc.
   • c. 1599, William Shakespeare, Julius Cæsar, Act I, Scene II, 1797, George Steevens (editor), The Plays of William Shakespeare, Volume 7, page 15,

     They shouted thrice; what was the last cry for?
2. (transitive) To utter with a shout; to cry; to shout out

3. (colloquial) To pay for food, drink or entertainment for others.

   I?ll shout you all a drink.

   He?s shouting us all to the opening night of the play.

   • 1999, Peter Moore, The Wrong Way Home: London to Sydney the Hard Way, page 301,

     After shouting me a plate of noodles and limp vegetables, he helped me change money by introducing me to the stallholder who offered the best exchange rates.

   • 2003, Peter Watt, To Chase the Storm, Pan MacMillan Australia, unnumbered page,

     ‘I have not seen my cousin Patrick in years,’ Martin answered defensively. ‘I doubt that, considering the way our lives have gone, an officer of the King?s army would be shouting me a drink in Mr O?Riley?s pub these days. […] ’

   • 2005, George G. Spearing, Dances with Marmots: A Pacific Crest Trail Adventure, page 32,

     Anyhow, he obviously bore no grudge against Kiwis, for he shouted me a beer and opened another one for himself, punctuating the operation with a spectacular and resounding fart that by all the laws of physical science should have left his trousers flapping in smouldering shreds.

   • 2010, Ivan Dunn, The Legend of Beau Baxter, HarperCollins Publishers, New Zealand, unnumbered page,

     Truth is, I notice the other blokes who have been shouting me nodding among themselves and thinking they?d better get in the queue if I am buying. Not likely. I am out of there.

4. (Internet) To post a text message (for example, email) in upper case, regarded as the electronic messaging equivalent of oral shouting.

5. (transitive, obsolete) To treat with shouts or clamor.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Bishop Hall to this entry?)

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:shout

Derived terms

• shoutbox
• shout down
• shout from the rooftops
• shouting match
• shout out

Translations

See also

• yell
• scream

Etymology 2

Noun

shout (plural shouts)

1. (Britain, dialect) A light flat-bottomed boat used in duck-shooting.

Anagrams

• Houts, Huots, South, houts, south, thous

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