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"tale" is also used as a crossword clue. If that's what you saw, the answer is often story (5 letters).
Definitions
Story, account, or sometimes an untrue excuse.
Word origin
From Middle English tale, from Old English talu (“tale, series, calculation”), from Proto-West Germanic *talu, from Proto-Germanic *talō (“calculation, number”), from Proto-Indo-European *del- (“to reckon, count”).
Used in a sentence
“the Canterbury Tales”
“And every shepherd tells his tale Under the hawthorn in the dale.”
“But can you guess what there was in the box? Why, it was a calf's tail, and if the calf's tail had been longer this tale would have been longer too.”
Source: Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0
Used as a crossword answer1 curated clues
01“Story”4 letters
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