How to Use tell on in a Sentence

tell on

verb
  • Like it or not, custom homes tell on their owners.
    — Spencer Elliott, Forbes.com, 4 Aug. 2025
  • People have a way of telling on themselves.
    — Expert Panel®, Forbes.com, 28 May 2026
  • Even their latest pre-match tifo felt telling on Wednesday night.
    — Philip Buckingham, New York Times, 3 June 2026
  • As told on a sign under the covered patio, there’s a bit of a dress code.
    — Jenna Thompson june 16, Kansas City Star, 16 June 2026
  • The rhetoric has even begun to filter into how stories might be told on screen.
    — Scott Roxborough, HollywoodReporter, 16 Jan. 2026
  • The thief is not caught, and the story is told on a porch stoop to another woman.
    — Miami Herald Archives, Miami Herald, 27 Feb. 2026
  • His story still hasn’t been entirely told on a big platform, as of yet.
    — Rosy Cordero, Deadline, 6 Dec. 2025
  • The physical toll being put on the mainstays in the squad looked to be telling on some.
    — Jordan Campbell, New York Times, 5 Jan. 2026
  • Obviously, time will tell on that.
    — Chris McKenna, New York Times, 14 May 2026
  • Anyone who finds that offensive is telling on themselves.
    — Prince J. Grimes, USA Today, 9 Feb. 2026
  • Pickett’s minutes last year were more of a tell on the rest of the Nuggets’ bench than any emergence on his own.
    — John Hollinger, New York Times, 26 June 2026
  • Or a tell on the defensive risk of the Herro-Powell pairing?
    — Ira Winderman, Sun Sentinel, 25 Feb. 2026
  • Anyone who decries the death of media literacy over a glitter wedding dress on X is telling on themselves.
    — Madeline Hirsch, InStyle, 17 Feb. 2026
  • Bejo will play Alice Guy Blaché in Alice, the first time the visionary’s story has been told on screen.
    — Max Goldbart, Deadline, 10 Sep. 2025
  • In the years since her death, Wuornos's story has been told on the screen several times, most famously in the 2003 film Monster.
    — Allison Degrushe, Entertainment Weekly, 30 Oct. 2025
  • The content is landing because someone did the strategic work before production began, making sure the story was worth telling on terms both the brand and the audience could believe in.
    — Jordan P. Kelley, Forbes.com, 30 June 2026
  • These results aren’t surprising, GOP strategist Matt Klink told on Tuesday.
    — Andrew Stanton, MSNBC Newsweek, 25 Nov. 2025
  • Even remakes and adaptations of centuries-old novels are kept away from prying eyes, forgetting that everybody can look up the ending of every story ever told on Wikipedia.
    — Richard Edwards, Space.com, 9 June 2026
  • Has this embarrassment of visual riches guaranteed that any story told on a smaller canvas is doomed to feel unambitious in comparison?
    — Richard Edwards, Space.com, 10 Sep. 2025
  • The company combines these elements to tell on stage narratives of struggle and perseverance while honoring heritage.
    — Kansas City Star, 14 Jan. 2026
  • The expense will be funded using excess revenue from 2023, commissioners were told on Thursday.
    — Arkansas Online, 16 Oct. 2025
  • With four picks on the final day of the draft, Carolina Panthers general manager Dan Morgan didn’t provide any tells on what or who the team might be thinking.
    — Joseph Person, New York Times, 25 Apr. 2026
  • The story being told on-screen mirrors the one ESSENCE has chronicled for generations.
    — Shelby Stewart, Essence, 4 Aug. 2025
  • He was released this week, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) told on Tuesday.
    — Robert Birsel, MSNBC Newsweek, 25 Nov. 2025
  • The pressure of perfection starts to tell on Redford’s character, Paul, who winds up drunk, in Washington Square Park, in broad daylight, tipping garbage over himself.
    — Anthony Lane, New Yorker, 18 Sep. 2025
  • That is a possibility, Grant Davis Reeher, a professor of political science at Syracuse University, told on Monday.
    — Andrew Stanton, MSNBC Newsweek, 10 Nov. 2025
  • Bob McKinley’s bio is still on Weatherford College’s website, even though he was told on Tuesday that he was being fired as the women’s basketball coach, ending a career at a school that started in 1977.
    — Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 7 Mar. 2026
  • The Media Research Center, a conservative watchdog group which is part-funded by Republican donor Robert Mercer, clocked that 92% of jokes told on the six nightly late-night shows were aimed at conservatives.
    — Peter White, Deadline, 23 Dec. 2025
  • The conversation zeroes in on what actually moves the needle for authentic stories told on micro-, low-, and medium‑budget levels, featuring a dynamic lineup of industry-leading legal experts, influential executives, and acclaimed filmmakers.
    — Zac Ntim, Deadline, 11 May 2026
  • Needless to say, that story has been told on his official releases of the era, from Bob Dylan to Another Side of Bob Dylan and Bringing It All Back Home and beyond.
    — David Browne, Rolling Stone, 26 Oct. 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'tell on.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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