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Telling tales; babbling. "The telltale heart." Poe.

A group of butterflies including those known as virgins, or gossamer-winged butterflies.

nce in doing; sufficiency of strength, skill, resources, etc.; -- in the plural, faculty, talent. Then the disciples, every man according to his ability, determined to send relief unto the brethren. Acts xi. 29. Natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by study. Bacon. The public men of England, wit…

y: Having intellectual qualifications, or strong mental powers; showing ability or skill; talented; clever; powerful; as, the ablest man in the senate; an able speech. No man wrote abler state papers. Macaulay.

al, professional, or public; -- often in the plural. "At the head of affairs." Junius. "A talent for affairs." Prescott.

To frighten. [Archaic] "Fit tales . . . to affrighten babes." Southey.

Lately; of late. [Archaic] There hath been alate such tales spread abroad. Latimer.

gory; of the nature of an allegory; describing by resemblances; figurative. "An allegoric tale." Falconer. "An allegorical application." Pope. Allegorical being . . . that kind of language which says one thing, but means another. Max Miller. Al`le*gor"ic*al*ly, adv. -- Al`le*gor"ic*al*ness, n.

One of the antipodes; anything exactly opposite. In tale or history your beggar is ever the just antipode to your king. Lamb.

To lose flavor or become stale. [Obs.]

; as, to injure the health by application to study. Had his application been equal to his talents, his progress night have been greater. J. Jay.

Opportunely or opportune; seasonably or seasonable. A tale extremely apropos. Pope.

ity and sincerity; sincere; guileless; ingenuous; honest; as, an artless mind; an artless tale. They were plain, artless men, without the least appearance of enthusiasm or credulity about them. Porteus. O, how unlike the complex works of man, Heaven's easy, artless, unencumbered plan! Cowper.

To broach; to begin. And right anon his tale he hath attamed. Chaucer.

The name of two plants (Sesamum orientale and S. indicum), originally Asiatic; -- also called oil plant. From their seeds an oil is expressed, called benne oil, used mostly for making soap. In the southern United States the seeds are used in candy.

A treatise on beasts; esp., one of the moralizing or allegorical beast tales written in the Middle Ages.

ter cress (Bot.), a plant of the genus Cardamine, esp. C. amara. -- Bitter earth (Min.), tale earth; calcined magnesia. -- Bitter principles (Chem.), a class of substances, extracted from vegetable products, having strong bitter taste but with no sharply defined chemical characteristics. -- Bitter salt, Epsom salts;…

To talk thoughtlessly or without discretion; to tattle; to tell tales. She must burst or blab. Dryden.

A tattler; a telltale.

does. G. Eliot. To blow upon. (a) To blast; to taint; to bring into discredit; to render stale, unsavory, or worthless. (b) To inform against. [Colloq.] How far the very custom of hearing anything spouted withers and blows upon a fine passage, may be seen in those speeches from [Shakespeare's] Henry V. which are curren…