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Operating with great effect; effective; as, a telling speech. -- Tell"ing*ly, adv.

The act or practice of telling stories.

A soothsaying; a foretelling. [Obs.] Sir T. Browne.

quently, the art of judging of the influences of the stars upon human affairs, and of foretelling events by their position and aspects.

The art or practice of foretelling events by observing the actions of birds, etc.; divination.

s. -- To speak by the card, to speak from information and definitely, not by guess as in telling a ship's bearing by the compass card. -- Visiting card, a small card bearing the name, and sometimes the address, of the person presenting it.

The act of telling fortunes with cards.

The art of telling fortunes by examining the hand.

The art or practice of foretelling events, or of telling the fortunes or the disposition of persons by inspecting the hand; palmistry.

ng power to denote; designating or marking off. Proper names are preëminently denotative; telling us that such as object has such a term to denote it, but telling us nothing as to any single attribute. Latham.

The act of divining; a foreseeing or foretelling of future events; the pretended art discovering secret or future by preternatural means. There shall not be found among you any one that . . . useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter. Deut. xviii. 10.

Pain; grief; distress; anguish. [Written also dolour.] [Poetic] Of death and dolor telling sad tidings. Spenser.

ove. Shak. You are as fond of grief as of your child. Shak. A great traveler, and fond of telling his adventures. Irving.

rophesy; to foreshow. Deeds then undone my faithful tongue foretold. Pope. Prodigies, foretelling the future eminence and luster of his character. C. Middleton.

One who runs house to house, tattling and telling news; an idle tattler. The common chat of gossips when they meet. Dryden.

ow scattered over Turkey, Russia, Hungary, Spain, England, etc., living by theft, fortune telling, horsejockeying, tinkering, etc. Cf. Bohemian, Romany. Like a right gypsy, hath, at fast and loose, Beguiled me to the very heart of loss. Shak.

ie, a euphemism for such lies as one finds it convenient to tell, and excuses himself for telling.

brow were graven lines austere. Byron. He tipples palmistry, and dines On all her fortune-telling lines. Cleveland.

Fortune telling by physiognomy. [R.] Urquhart.

ix. 11. Being so hard to me that brought your mind, I fear she'll prove as hard to you in telling her mind. Shak.