tattletale

noun

ˈta-tᵊl-ˌtāl How to pronounce tattletale (audio)
Definition of tattletalenext
as in informant
a person who provides information about another's wrongdoing don't be such a tattletale and tell me about every little thing your sister does

Synonyms & Similar Words

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Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of tattletale That kid has tattletale energy. — Roxana Hadadi, Vulture, 7 Apr. 2026 People who come forward are called narcs, tattletales and snitches. — Eric Sondheimer, Los Angeles Times, 26 Feb. 2026 Years later, their youngest daughter, Hannah Burch – now 24 and a mother herself – shared a viral TikTok video reflecting on the unique ways she and her siblings were raised — from rules around being a tattletale to monthly family yardwork and chore expectations. — Tereza Shkurtaj, PEOPLE, 18 Oct. 2025 Unfortunately, The Croat, being a complete and total tattletale, blabbed to The Dama that Negan had hesitated. — Charlie Mason, TVLine, 11 May 2025 Upsides And Downsides Are At Stake Generative AI can readily be shaped as a tattletale or snitch by an AI maker. — Lance Eliot, Forbes, 14 Mar. 2025 The two of them, as though after a party, would have stood at the sink cleaning dishes and wondering which among the attendees was the traitor, the tattletale. — Hazlitt, 26 July 2023 We’re basically guaranteed to see that thing where one person tells Zach that another person is there for the wrong reasons, but then the tattletale winds up consumed by their own vendetta and self-sabotages. — Andrea Marks, Rolling Stone, 23 Jan. 2023 One errant tweet, one mistimed joke, one honest opinion overheard by an oversensitive busybody with the shrunken soul of a schoolyard tattletale, and a person’s job can be lost and his reputation destroyed. — James E. Person Jr., National Review, 17 Sep. 2020
Recent Examples of Synonyms for tattletale
  1. informant
  2. informer
  3. canary
  4. rat
  5. tattler
  6. reporter
Noun
  • Sentenced to life in prison, Buchanan maintained a grip over gangs in the South Bay area of San Diego, according to an FBI report of an informant’s interview.
    — Matthew Ormseth, Los Angeles Times, 22 Oct. 2026
  • Sguros was listed as the informant on West’s death certificate, and several months after the initial death investigation, was legally authorized to release West’s remains to a cremation service business.
    — Angie DiMichele, Sun Sentinel, 22 Oct. 2026
Definition of informant
Noun
  • One of State Security’s main goals, as well as a central source of its strength, is turning civilians into informers.
    — Abraham Jiménez Enoa, The Dial, 19 May 2026
  • And so every regime invests in having student informers.
    — Anne Applebaum, The Atlantic, 23 Jan. 2026
Definition of informer
Noun
  • For a cold moment the silence locked a grip on our table, though it was broken, at the edges, by the golf commentators moaning and harrumphing, Rory McIlroy having had a canary on a seventeenth fairway somewhere this championship Sunday.
    — Kevin Barry, New Yorker, 11 Oct. 2026
  • Astronauts bring them on journeys to keep an eye on whether or not the water filtration systems are working, much the way miners used to take canaries down to the coal mines to check for poisonous gas leaks.
    — Leslie Felperin, HollywoodReporter, 18 Sep. 2026
Definition of canary
Noun
  • In 1894 French-Swiss bacteriologist Alexandre Yersin isolated the plague bacterium and connected rat infestations to the disease.
    — Faye Flam, Scientific American, 27 Oct. 2026
  • That money will fund a rat model of Jaxson’s gene mutation, which is expected to be studied at UT Southwestern next year.
    — Ciara McCarthy October 22, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 22 Oct. 2026
Definition of rat
Noun
  • Tattling to the Bachelor doesn’t always go well for the tattler.
    — Kristen Baldwin, EW.com, 25 Feb. 2025
  • Mortimer Zuckerman, the owner, hired him to replace a British editor who had turned it from a brash, tough-guy paper into a tattler of celebrity gossip and supermarket tabloid stunts.
    — Robert D. McFadden, BostonGlobe.com, 5 Aug. 2020
Definition of tattler
Noun
  • Watt joined play-by-play announcer Jim Nantz and sideline reporter Tracy Wolfson after Tony Romo went on leave following his July 23 arrest in Wisconsin.
    — ABC News, ABC News, 22 Oct. 2026
  • According to one of the student reporters, SB Nation’s Testudo Times journalist Nolan Rogalski, he and Jude Wilkenfeld believed they were permitted to stand outside the football complex because Maryland is a public university.
    — Trey Wallace OutKick, FOXNews.com, 22 Oct. 2026
Definition of reporter

Browse Nearby Words

tattles
tattletale
tattletales
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Cite this Entry

“Tattletale.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/tattletale. Accessed 29 Oct. 2026.

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