cock-and-bull story vs tale

cock-and-bull story and tale both are nouns.

Word	Noun	Adjective	Verb	Adverb
cock-and-bull story	Yes	No	No	No
tale	Yes	No	No	No

As nouns, tale is a hypernym of cock-and-bull story; that is, tale is a word with a broader meaning than cock-and-bull story:

cock-and-bull story: an interesting but highly implausible story; often told as an excuse
tale: a trivial lie

Other hypernyms of cock-and-bull story include fib, story, taradiddle, tarradiddle.

cock-and-bull story (noun)	tale (noun)
an interesting but highly implausible story; often told as an excuse	a message that tells the particulars of an act or occurrence or course of events; presented in writing or drama or cinema or as a radio or television program
	a trivial lie