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Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

untold en · ADJ

Pronunciation

  • (Southern-England) audio
  • /ʌnˈtəʊld/ (Received-Pronunciation)
  • /anˈtəʉld/ (Australia)
  • /ʌnˈtoʊld/ (General-American)

Etymology

From Old English unteald (“not counted or reckoned”), from tellan (“count, relate, tell”).

Meanings

  1. (not-comparable) Not told; not related; not revealed; secret.
    • As Royal Engineers General Mungo Melvin, who has been helping with the draft, put it: "This is the last untold story of the Normandy Invasion." 2023 June 28, Christian Wolmar, “The railway's crucial role in the Normandy invasion”, in RAIL, number 986, page 45:
  2. (not-comparable) Not numbered or counted.
    • More importantly, there is an untold multitude of Indian English terms that have never been given lexicographical treatment in any dictionary. 2012, James Lambert, “Beyond Hobson-Jobson: A new lexicography for Indian English”, in World Englishes, page 301:
    • Huge swaths of Port-au-Prince lay in ruins, and thousands of people were feared dead in the rubble. 2010 January 14, Simon Romero, “Haiti Lies in Ruins; Grim Search for Untold Dead”, in The New York Times:
  3. (not-comparable) Not able to be counted, measured, told, expressed in words, or described; extremely large in scale, number, quantity, suffering, damage, etc.; uncountable, unmeasurable, immeasurable, indescribable, inexpressible.
    • Shih Hung-pi was born a pauper at a poor household in Suichung County, Liaoning. He suffered untold misery in the old society. Then he joined the PLA. 1975 March 13 [1975 March 7], “Chief of Staff of PLA Air Unit Dies in Training Exercise”, in Daily Report: People's Republic of China, volume I, number 50, Foreign Broadcast Information Service, →ISSN, →OCLC, page E 6:
    • The South propose to found a Government on servile labor, not as it originally was an accident and an incident, but as the degrading and disgraceful foundation of a Government, and to such a Government as this the Chicago platform offer an armistice, and ask the American men to beg to it for peace. He closed with an appeal to all -- to those at the loom and at the plow, in the army and in the navy, in the workshop and in the counting room to spurn forever from their recognition and their confidence the base men who would not only degrade and disgrace the party they pretend to represent, but would also bring untold disgrace and dishonor upon our country and our flag. 1864 November 6, “THE WAR DEMOCRACY.; Immense Meeting at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. A LARGE AND FASHIONABLE AUDIENCE. A Masterly Speech by Major-Gen. Sickles. MAJ.-GEN. DANIEL E. SICKLES.”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 14 Sep 2023, page 1:
    • Trains are kept on the move in circumstances when, for example, a fifteen-minute hold-up to carry out a repair task at one attempt would cause untold upset to a service running at close intervals. 1960 January 14, from 'London Transport Magazine', “Rotation on the Underground”, in Railway Magazine, page 12:

Translations (6)

pl niewypowiedziany (not numbered) · pl niewypowiedziany (not told) · pl niewysłowiony (not numbered) · pl niewypowiedziany (not able to be counted) · pl niewysłowiony (not able to be counted) · pl niewysłowiony (not told)