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general::
noun ADJ. long, rambling | amazing, bizarre, curious, extraordinary, fantastic, magical, marvellous, strange | awful, dire, sad, sorry, terrible the sorry tale of his marriage breakdown | dreary She was tired of hearing the same dreary tale of drunkenness and violence. | chilling, gruesome, hair-raising, horror, macabre | mysterious, spooky | funny, humorous, witty | foolish | lurid, spicy, tawdry | fanciful, far-fetched, incredible, tall, unlikely a tall tale that would fool no one | old wives' | rags-to-riches the rags-to-riches tale of an orphan who becomes a star | epic, heroic an epic tale of courage and heroism | cautionary, moral, morality | folk, traditional | childhood | fairy (often figurative) Winning the French Open was a fairy-tale end to her career. | romantic VERB + TALE narrate, regale sb with, relate, tell (sb) She regaled us with tales of her wild youth. | invent, make up, spin TALE + VERB begin | unfold | concern sb/sth, involve sb/sth | be set in … a tale set in 19th-century Moscow | be based on sth PREP. ~ about a tale about a hungry snake | ~ of tales of adventure the curious tale of the man who sold his hair PHRASES a tale of woe (= about failure, bad luck, etc.), (have) a tale to tell Each of the survivors had a terrible tale to tell. | tell tales (= to say things about sb that are untrue or that they would prefer to be secret)
Oxford Collocations Dictionary