Definition
A tale or story which is fantastic and greatly exaggerated; also, an account of questionable veracity; a lie, an untruth.
Origins
From tall (“exaggerated”) + tale.
In Context
- "He returned on Monday with a tall tale about a 100-pound fish he had caught."
- "The head-in-sand idea is a threadbare, 2,000-year-old hand-me-down from the Roman naturalist Pliny, who sometimes passed on tall tales."
Also Said As
- Banbury story of a cock and a bull
- cock-and-bull story
- fish story
- tall story
- traveller's tale
See Also
- shaggy dog story
- whopper