different between tell vs greet

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

• IPA^(key): /??i?t/
• Rhymes: -i?t

Etymology 1

From Middle English greten, from Old English gr?tan, from Proto-Germanic *gr?tijan?.

Verb

greet (third-person singular simple present greets, present participle greeting, simple past and past participle greeted)

1. (transitive) To welcome in a friendly manner, either in person or through another means such as writing.
   • 1591, William Shakespeare, Richard III, Act III, scene 1

     My lord, the mayor of London comes to greet you.

   • 1900, Charles W. Chesnutt, The House Behind the Cedars, Chapter I,

     Warwick observed, as they passed through the respectable quarter, that few people who met the girl greeted her, and that some others whom she passed at gates or doorways gave her no sign of recognition; from which he inferred that she was possibly a visitor in the town and not well acquainted.

2. (transitive) To arrive at or reach, or meet.
   • 1707, Joseph Addison, Rosamond, Act I, scene 4

     In vain the spring my senses greets.

   • 2009, Loren Long, ?Phil Bildner, Magic in the Outfield (page 47)

     Way deep in left field, where the carpet of green sloped upward to a terrace and greeted the thick line of trees, he reached out his glove.

3. (transitive) To accost; to address.
   • 1725, Alexander Pope translating Homer, Odyssey

     Fair on his feet the polish'd sandals shine,
     And thus he greets the master of the swine:

4. (intransitive, archaic) To meet and give salutations.
   • circa 1590, William Shakespeare, Titus Adronicus, Act I, scene 2, line 90

     There greet in silence, as the dead are wont, And sleep in peace.

5. (transitive) To be perceived by (somebody).

Conjugation

Derived terms

• greeter
• meet-and-greet
• regreet

Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English greet, grete (“great”).

Adjective

greet (comparative more greet, superlative most greet)

1. (obsolete outside Scotland) Great.

Etymology 3

From a blend of two Old English verbs, gr?tan, gr?tan (itself from Proto-Germanic *gr?tan?); and of Old English gr?otan (itself from Proto-Germanic *greutan?), both meaning "to weep, lament".

Verb

greet (third-person singular simple present greets, present participle greeting, simple past and past participle greeted or grat or grutten)

2. (Scotland, Northern England) To weep; to cry.
   • 1933, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Cloud Howe, Polygon 2006 (A Scots Quair), page 312:

     And damn't! if he didn't take down her bit things and scone her so sore she grat like a bairn [...].

   • 2008, James Kelman, Kieron Smith, Boy, Penguin 2009, page 2:

     My maw went potty and started greeting.

Related terms

• regret

Noun

greet (uncountable)

1. (obsolete) Mourning, weeping, lamentation.

Further reading

• Frank Graham (1987) The New Geordie Dictionary, ?ISBN
• Northumberland Words, English Dialect Society, R. Oliver Heslop, 1893–4
• greet in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

Anagrams

• Geter, egret, reget

Middle English

Alternative forms

• grete

Etymology

From Old English gr?at, in turn from Proto-Germanic *grautaz.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?r??t/

Adjective

greet (plural and weak singular greete, comparative greter, superlative gretest)

1. great (large, significant)

Descendants

• English: great
  • ? Welsh: grêt
• Scots: great, greet, grete, greit

Scots

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?rit/

Etymology 1

From a blend of two Old English verbs, gr?tan (cognate with Swedish gråta', Danish græde) and gr?otan (of uncertain ultimate origin), both ‘weep, lament’.

Verb

greet (third-person singular present greets, present participle greetin, past grat or grettit, past participle grutten)

1. to weep, lament

Noun

greet (uncountable)

1. cry, lamentation

Etymology 2

Adjective

greet (comparative greeter, superlative greetest)

1. Alternative form of great