fairy tale
/ˈfɛɹi ˌteɪl/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.87 in modern English
15
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
2
Syllables
8
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A fabricated or misleading account meant to deceive, such as an exaggerated excuse.
noun
A delightful and ideal situation of a kind attained by very few.
Example Sentences
- "I used to love reading fairy tales when I was a child."
- "The Wife of Bathes Tale is evidently a Fairy-tale. It thus commences: In olde dayes of the king Artour, / Of which that Bretons speken gret honour, / All was this land fulfilled of faerie."
- "The Arabian Nights rehears'd in bed! / The Fairy Tales in school-time read."
- "Their dresses were rich, and when they came bounding forward, their shapes of silver tissue, with their feathered diadems and faces of animated beauty, they might be imagined into scarcely less than the creations of fairy tale."
- "Mr. Shimerda kneels in front of the tree in prayer; a praying figure under a magic tree is a common one in fairy tale."
- "He's telling us another fairy tale about how great the software will be."
Etymology
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈfɛɹi ˌteɪl/
- British English: /ˈfeəɹi ˌteɪl/