to tell fortunes
- phrasal verb
- At the fair, she tells fortunes by reading tarot cards for curious visitors.
- tell fortunes with tea
- tell fortunes with tea leaves
Examples
-
- You mean he tells fortunes?
-
That means you have the powers to read palms and tell fortunes and wonderful things are gonna happen to you.
-
A friend of my sister, she tells fortunes and stuff.
-
I tell fortunes by reading the creases.
-
They all tell fortunes all night long about men, and mine are always about work.
Fiction book (1999) -
Mostly I tell fortunes.
-
Can you tell fortunes?
-
You tell fortunes.
-
She tells fortunes at the hotels. "I think I've seen her," Margery said.
Fiction book (2002) -
By my twelfth birthday, I had convinced her to take me traveling with her in the summer months, telling fortunes by reading palms and reading the tarot.
Fiction book (1997)
Synonyms
To say what will happen in the future
To say what will happen in the future
To say what will happen in the future, often claiming it comes from a god
To tell someone's future by reading the lines on their palm
To say what will happen in the future because someone has spiritual power
How Predictive
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'to claim to predict the future' follows directly from combining 'tell' (to say or relate) with 'fortunes' (one's luck/fate), and maps onto the common concept of 'fortune-telling' or a 'fortune-teller'. This compositional logic is cross-linguistically common and would be inferable by a B1 learner who knows the constituent words.
Etymology
Tell fortunes comes from the clear picture of a reader using cards, a palm, or tea leaves and telling a person's fortunes by saying what might happen to them. That's why it means 'to predict the future'.