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telling

[ tel-ing ]

/ ˈtɛl ɪŋ /

SEE SYNONYMS FOR telling ON THESAURUS.COM

adjective

having force or effect; effective; striking: a telling blow.

revealing; indicative of much otherwise unnoticed: a telling analysis of motivation in business.

Origin of telling

First recorded in 1850–55; tell¹ + -ing²

SYNONYMS FOR telling

1 powerful, forceful, potent, weighty.

SEE SYNONYMS FOR telling ON THESAURUS.COM

OTHER WORDS FROM telling

tell·ing·ly, adverb un·tell·ing, adjective

Words nearby telling

tell-all, tellable, teller, teller, edward, tellin, telling, telloh, telltale, tellurate, tellurian, telluric

Example sentences from the Web for tellingly

Tellingly, but not coincidentally, the greatest expansion of Medicaid has occurred in Deep Blue America.

With Immigration Move, Obama and the Welfare Party Strike Again |Lloyd Green |November 24, 2014 |DAILY BEAST
Tellingly, Rieux finds common ground with every character except the priest.

Albert Camus, Our Existential Epidemiologist |Malcolm Jones |October 17, 2014 |DAILY BEAST
Three days after, she retweeted a tellingly simple sentence: “Family is hard.”

Lesbian Brit Kidnapped to Be ‘Cured’ in Congo |Nina Strochlic |August 29, 2014 |DAILY BEAST
Tellingly, both still trail the haul stacked up by The LEGO Movie back in February.

Is the Summer Blockbuster Dead? |Kevin Fallon |July 14, 2014 |DAILY BEAST

Tellingly, Cantor and Griffin received more financial support from outside their home states than within.

Obama Is the New Dubya |Lloyd Green |June 17, 2014 |DAILY BEAST
The slogan, heard so tellingly at Lucknow, is swelling up the glaciers of the Asiatic fatherland to save it from the Scythians!

Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 |Various
But Gilian, as he went, busied himself on how he should convey most tellingly the story he brought down the glen.

Gilian The Dreamer |Neil Munro
Readers of his journals and correspondence know how vividly and tellingly he can relate an experience or touch off a character.

Life of John Keats |Sidney Colvin
These are tellingly related in that classic volume, "Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada."

Your National Parks |Enos A. Mills
Here is where the influence of every fair-minded woman and patriotic man can be tellingly exerted.

The Animal World, A Book of Natural History |Theodore Wood

British Dictionary definitions for tellingly

telling

/ (ˈtɛlɪŋ) /

adjective

having a marked effect or impact a telling blow

revealing a telling smile

Derived forms of telling

tellingly, adverb