Tale

noun
1.
a narrative that relates the details of some real or imaginary event, incident, or case; story:
a tale about Lincoln’s dog.
2.
a literary composition having the form of such a narrative.
3.
a falsehood; lie.
4.
a rumor or piece of gossip, often malicious or untrue.
5.
the full number or amount.
6.
Archaic. enumeration; count.
7.
Obsolete. talk; discourse.
noun
1.
a report, narrative, or story
2.
one of a group of short stories connected by an overall narrative framework
3.

a malicious or meddlesome rumour or piece of gossip: to bear tales against someone
(in combination): talebearer, taleteller

4.
a fictitious or false statement
5.
tell tales

to tell fanciful lies
to report malicious stories, trivial complaints, etc, esp to someone in authority

6.
tell a tale, to reveal something important
7.
tell its own tale, to be self-evident
8.
(archaic)

a number; amount
computation or enumeration

9.
an obsolete word for talk
take to

Typed Applicative Language Experiment. M. van Leeuwen. Lazy, purely applicative, polymorphic. Based on typed second order lambda-calculus. “Functional Programming and the Language TALE”, H.P. Barendregt et al, in Current Trends in Concurrency, LNCS 224, Springer 1986, pp.122-207.

(1.) Heb. tokhen, “a task,” as weighed and measured out = tally, i.e., the number told off; the full number (Ex. 5:18; see 1 Sam. 18:27; 1 Chr. 9:28). In Ezek. 45:11 rendered “measure.” (2.) Heb. hegeh, “a thought;” “meditation” (Ps. 90:9); meaning properly “as a whisper of sadness,” which is soon over, or “as a thought.” The LXX. and Vulgate render it “spider;” the Authorized Version and Revised Version, “as a tale” that is told. In Job 37:2 this word is rendered “sound;” Revised Version margin, “muttering;” and in Ezek. 2:10, “mourning.”