William Tell

American  

noun

1. a legendary Swiss patriot forced by the Austrian governor to shoot an apple off his son's head with bow and arrow.

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Tell, William Cultural  

1. A legendary hero of Switzerland, famous for his skill as an archer. A tyrannical official forced him to shoot an apple off his son's head.

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Example Sentences

There were dancing human bobbleheads of opera composers Verdi, Puccini and Rossini, as if they were mascots for Team Rigoletto, Team Tosca and Team William Tell.

From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 6, 2026

Finally, the film gets surrealistic and even incorporates the William Tell scene from Burroughs' own life.

From Salon • Dec. 1, 2024

She had written: “There’s a seething stillness to ‘The Card Counter,’ and to star Oscar Isaac’s character, William Tell.

From Washington Post • Nov. 26, 2021

There is Rat Island, nothing more than a pile of rocks with a strange statue of the Swiss folk hero William Tell.

From Scientific American • Oct. 12, 2021

I think that as we listened to the William Tell Overture, we were supposed to be imagining the Lone Ranger and Tonto riding their horses through the desert.

From "Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe" by Benjamin Alire Saenz