English
tall
Tall comes from Middle English tall ‘seemly, bold’, from Old English *tæl ‘swift, ready’, from Proto-Germanic *talaz, from PIE *del- ‘to count’.
- Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*del-1‘to count, reckon’reconstructed
- Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*talaz1‘submissive’reconstructed
- Old Englishc. 450–1150*tæl1‘swift, ready’reconstructed
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500tall1‘seemly, handsome; bold; big’
- Englishearliest quotation 1870tall1
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor
- 1 Wiktionary, English tall, which cites OED
- Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1870, The Cornhill Magazine: “"That's tall talk." "Not an inch taller than the…”.
Lineage
- Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*del-Wiktionary, English tall, which cites OED‘to count, reckon’reconstructed
- Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*talazWiktionary, English tall, which cites OED‘submissive’reconstructed
- Old Englishc. 450–1150*tælWiktionary, English tall, which cites OED‘swift, ready’reconstructed
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500tallWiktionary, English tall, which cites OED‘seemly, handsome; bold; big’
- Englishearliest quotation 1870tallWiktionary, English tall, which cites OED. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1870, The Cornhill Magazine: “"That's tall talk." "Not an inch taller than the…”
The story
The Oxford English Dictionary notes: "The sense development [of tall] is remarkable, but is paralleled more or less by that of other adjectives expressing estimation, such as buxom, canny, clean, clever, cunning, deft, elegant, handsome, pretty, proper; German klein, as compared with English clean, presents the antithesis to modern tall as compared to tall in early Middle English. It has been conjectured that in the sense 'high of stature' it is a different word, adopted from the Welsh tal in some sense; but the latter is, according to Professor Rhŷs, merely a 16th-century borrowing of the English word (in Owen Pughe's Dictionary erroneously mixed up with the genuine Welsh word tal (‘end, brow, forehead’), with which it has no possible connection.)"
Word family
English words that share an ancestor with tall, grouped by the ancestor they share, most familiar first.
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Today it means
adj Having great vertical extent (usually reckoned from the bottom of the feet to the very top of the head) when standing. (For instance, somebody with a height of over 6 feet would generally be deemed tall.)
Sources
Sources: Wiktionary, “tall”. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.
Etymograph / Proto-Indo-European *del- / tall