tall
/tɔl/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.52 in modern English
4
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
3
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
Having a top that is far up (contrast: deep (having a bottom that is far down' ).)
American usage
adj
Hard to believe, such as a tall story or a tall tale.
Example Sentences
- "Being tall is an advantage in basketball."
- "Ostriches are the tallest living birds."
- "Then came a maid with hand-bag and shawls, and after her a tall young lady. She stood for a moment holding her skirt above the grimy steps,[…], and the light of the reflector fell full upon her."
- "He′d been packed in with all the other journos, standing out only in that he was taller than most and didn′t make as much noise."
- "Tall trees, at least about 30m high."
- "To him it seemed that the Bornean rainforests, the tallest on Earth, were places that had: 'remained untouched and unchanged since remote geological epochs[.]'"
Etymology
From Middle English tall, talle, tal (“seemly, becoming, handsome, good-looking, excellent, good, valiant, lively in speech, bold, great, large, big”), from Old English *tæl, ġetæl (“swift, ready, having mastery of”), from Proto-Germanic *talaz (“submissive, pliable, obedient”), from Proto-Indo-European *dol-, *del- (“to aim, calculate, adjust, reckon”). Cognate with Scots tal (“high, lofty, tall”), Old Frisian tel (“swift”), Old Saxon gital (“quick”), Old High German gizal (“active, agile”), Gothic 𐌿𐌽𐍄𐌰𐌻𐍃 (untals, “indocile, disobedient”). The Oxford English Dictionary notes: "The sense development [of tall] is remarkable, but is paralleled more or less by that of other adjectives expressing estimation, such as buxom, canny, clean, clever, cunning, deft, elegant, handsome, pretty, proper; German klein, as compared with English clean, presents the antithesis to modern tall as compared to tall in early Middle English. It has been conjectured that in the sense 'high of stature' it is a different word, adopted from the Welsh tal in some sense; but the latter is, according to Professor Rhŷs, merely a 16th-century borrowing of the English word (in Owen Pughe's Dictionary erroneously mixed up with the genuine Welsh word tal (“end, brow, forehead”), with which it has no possible connection.)"
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /tɔl/
- British English: /tɔːl/