Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun One who informs on another; a talebearer.
  • noun Something that indicates or reveals information; a sign.
  • noun Any of various devices that indicate or register information, especially.
  • noun A time clock.
  • noun Nautical One of the brightly colored lengths of yarn or ribbon attached to the shrouds, stays, or sails of a sailboat, serving to indicate wind direction relative to the boat's motion.
  • noun A row of strips hung above a railroad track to warn a passing train of low clearance ahead.
  • noun Sports A resonant metal strip, 24 or 30 inches (61 or 76 centimeters) high, across the bottom of the front wall of a racquets or squash court above which the ball must be hit.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun One who officiously or heedlessly communicates information concerning the private affairs of others; one who tells that which is supposed to be secret or private; a blabber; an informer; a tale-bearer.
  • noun An indication or an indicator; that which serves to convey information.
  • noun A name given to a variety of instruments or devices, usually automatic, used for counting, indicating, registering, or otherwise giving desired information.
  • noun In ornithology, a tattler; a bird of the genus Totanus in a broad sense: as, the greater and lesser telltale, Totanus melanoleucus and T. fiavipes. See tattler, and cut under yellowlegs.
  • Disposed to tell or reveal secrets, whether officiously or heedlessly; given to betraying the confidences or revealing the private affairs of others; blabbing: as, telltale people.
  • Showing, revealing, or denoting that which is not intended to be known, apparent, or proclaimed: as, telltale tears; telltale blushes.
  • That gives warning or intimation of something: as, a telltale pipe attached to a cistern or tank.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun One who officiously communicates information of the private concerns of others; one who tells that which prudence should suppress.
  • noun (Mus.) A movable piece of ivory, lead, or other material, connected with the bellows of an organ, that gives notice, by its position, when the wind is exhausted.
  • noun A mechanical attachment to the steering wheel, which, in the absence of a tiller, shows the position of the helm.
  • noun A compass in the cabin of a vessel, usually placed where the captain can see it at all hours, and thus inform himself of the vessel's course.
  • noun (Mach.) A machine or contrivance for indicating or recording something, particularly for keeping a check upon employees, as factory hands, watchmen, drivers, check takers, and the like, by revealing to their employers what they have done or omitted.
  • noun (Zoöl.) The tattler. See Tattler.
  • noun A thing that serves to disclose something or give information; a hint or indication.
  • noun (Railroads) An arrangement consisting of long strips, as of rope, wire, or leather, hanging from a bar over railroad tracks, in such a position as to warn freight brakemen of their approach to a low overhead bridge.
  • adjective Telling tales; babbling.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun One who divulges private information with intent to hurt others.
  • noun slang Tattletale; squealer.
  • noun Something that serves to reveal something else.
  • noun music A movable piece of ivory, lead, or other material, connected to the bellows of an organ, whose position indicates when the wind is exhausted.
  • noun nautical A length of yarn or ribbon attached to a sail or shroud etc to indicate the direction of the flow of the air relative to the boat.
  • noun nautical A mechanical attachment to the steering wheel, which, in the absence of a tiller, shows the position of the helm.
  • noun nautical A compass in the cabin of a vessel, usually placed where the captain can see it at all hours, and thus inform himself of the vessel's course.
  • noun engineering A machine or contrivance for indicating or recording something, particularly for keeping a check upon employees (factory hands, watchmen, drivers, etc.) by revealing to their employers what they have done or omitted.
  • noun A bird, the tattler.
  • adjective revealing something not intended to be known

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective disclosing unintentionally
  • noun someone who gossips indiscreetly

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old English (circa 1550)

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Examples

  • But state bushfire chief Phil Koperberg said commanders were watching up to 30 suspects for certain telltale signs.

    Firefighters Starting Their Own Fires | Impact Lab 2006

  • Sometimes seeing someone you have a crush on results in telltale physiological signs.

    Archive 2005-07-01 Ben Barren 2005

  • Sometimes seeing someone you have a crush on results in telltale physiological signs.

    This seems farely accurate... Ben Barren 2005

  • The "Dra" bit refers to a telltale sign of viral infection—double-stranded RNA molecules—while the "co" bit concerns the mechanism by which a cell commits suicide if so infected.

    Modifying Mother Nature to Kill Nasty Viruses Matt Ridley 2011

  • I mean, I never saw any, you know, what I guess you would call telltale signs that Susan ever would have hurt Michael and Alex, would have harmed them.

    CNN Transcript Apr 29, 2009 2009

  • Then there were the ubiquitous "floatables": leaves, wrappers, a plastic bottle, a condom, the last of which Mr. Lipscomb identified as a telltale sign of sewage.

    NYT > Home Page By MIREYA NAVARRO 2011

  • I recall the telltale scene in Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining" in which the clairvoyant little boy envisions the brass elevator doors of his mysterious new family home in a mystical hotel resort slowly opening to unleash a torrent of blood that spills and splashes over the entire hall, filling it (and his innocent mind) with the hotel's revealed contents of terror and "redrum."

    Arizona Daily Wildcat 2009

  • When it's all over, scientists will scrutinize every twisted shard of metal for some kind of telltale resemblance to the catastrophe that brought down TWA Flight 800.

    What Really Happened? 2008

  • He could have used magic to keep them all warm, of course, but that would have been another kind of telltale, as certain to some "eyes" as lighting a beacon.

    The Elvenbane Lackey, Mercedes 1991

  • Running along the front wall, 17 inches in height, is the "telltale" made of sheet metal.

    Squash Tennis Richard C. Squires

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