Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Conformity to fact or actuality.
  • noun Reality; actuality.
  • noun The reality of a situation.
  • noun A statement proven to be or accepted as true.
  • noun Such statements considered as a group.
  • noun Sincerity; integrity.
  • noun Fidelity to an original or standard.
  • noun Theology & Philosophy That which is considered to be the ultimate ground of reality.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The state or character of being true; trueness.
  • noun The state of being made true or exact; exact conformity to a model, rule, or plan; accuracy of adjustment; exact adaptation.
  • noun In the fine arts, the proper and correct representation of any object in nature, or of whatever subject may be under treatment; specifically, in architecture, avoidance of deceits in construction or decoration, as of non-concordance of apparent and real structure, or of imitation of stone or marble in paint or plaster.
  • noun Habitual disposition to speak only what is true; veracity; purity from falsehood; truthfulness; sincerity; uprightness; honesty: as, a man of truth.
  • noun Disposition to be faithful; fidelity; constancy.
  • noun The state of not being counterfeited or adulterated; genuineness; purity.
  • noun That which is true.
  • noun A verified fact; a true statement or proposition; an established principle, fixed law, or the like.
  • noun That which is righteous or in accordance with the divine standard.
  • noun Faith pledged; pledge; troth. See troth.
  • noun Synonyms See reality.
  • To affirm or declare truthfully.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb rare To assert as true; to declare.
  • noun The quality or being true; as: -- (a) Conformity to fact or reality; exact accordance with that which is, or has been; or shall be.
  • noun Conformity to rule; exactness; close correspondence with an example, mood, object of imitation, or the like.
  • noun Fidelity; constancy; steadfastness; faithfulness.
  • noun The practice of speaking what is true; freedom from falsehood; veracity.
  • noun That which is true or certain concerning any matter or subject, or generally on all subjects; real state of things; fact; verity; reality.
  • noun A true thing; a verified fact; a true statement or proposition; an established principle, fixed law, or the like.
  • noun Righteousness; true religion.
  • noun in reality; in fact.
  • noun in reality; certainly.
  • noun to practice what God commands.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The state or quality of being true to someone or something
  • noun archaic Faithfulness, fidelity.
  • noun obsolete A pledge of loyalty or faith.
  • noun Conformity to fact or reality; correctness, accuracy.
  • noun True facts, genuine depiction or statements of reality.
  • noun That which is real, in a deeper sense; spiritual or ‘genuine’ reality.
  • noun Something acknowledged to be true; a true statement or axiom.
  • noun physics A now-outdated term for topness. (See also truth quark.)
  • verb obsolete, transitive To assert as true; to declare.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a true statement
  • noun a fact that has been verified
  • noun conformity to reality or actuality
  • noun United States abolitionist and feminist who was freed from slavery and became a leading advocate of the abolition of slavery and for the rights of women (1797-1883)
  • noun the quality of being near to the true value

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English trewthe, loyalty, from Old English trēowth; see deru- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English, from Old English trēowþ, trīewþ ("truth, veracity, faith, fidelity, loyalty, honour, pledge, covenant"), from Proto-Germanic *triwwiþō (“promise, covenant, contract”), from Proto-Indo-European *drū- (“tree”), from Proto-Indo-European *deru- (“firm, solid”), equivalent to true +‎ -th. Cognate with Icelandic tryggð ("loyalty, fidelity").

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Examples

  • 'In search of truth' yahooBuzzArticleHeadline = '\'In search of truth\' '; yahooBuzzArticleSummary =' Article: It should come as no surprise that any reputable and unbiased media organization looking for expert Iran analysis would pay more than just lip service to vetting its sources and actually check the credentials of their pundits.

    'In search of truth' 2008

  • We had heard the truth, I was sure, from Stillingfleet, but had we heard the _whole _truth?

    Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine 2004

  • We had heard the truth, I was sure, from Stillingfleet, but had we heard the _whole _truth?

    Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine 2004

  • So charity, or rather its possessor, is no willful truth “butcherer,” for charity believeth all things (_or all truth_); hopeth all things (_promised_); rejoiceth, not in iniquity, but in the truth.

    The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, June, 1880 Various

  • There is a swift witness for truth in his bosom, which _will respond to truth_ when it is uttered with calmness and dignity.

    The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus American Anti-Slavery Society

  • There is a swift witness for truth in his bosom, which _will respond to truth_ when it is uttered with calmness and dignity.

    The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 1 of 4 American Anti-Slavery Society

  • The religion which has taught men truth -- above all things, _truth_ -- which teaches utter horror of a lie, which insists on the bare, bald reality in heaven and earth, which has taught men hatred of the false as the meanest and most unmanly thing existing -- this religion took its rise in claptrap miracles, was puffed into popularity by boasting pretensions, was born in trickery and nurtured by legerdemain!

    Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 Devoted to Literature and National Policy Various

  • There is a swift witness for truth in his bosom, which _will respond to truth_ when it is uttered with calmness and dignity.

    The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus American Anti-Slavery Society

  • There is a swift witness for truth in his bosom, which _will respond to truth_ when it is uttered with calmness and dignity.

    The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 1 of 4 American Anti-Slavery Society

  • Then, to make sure, we got hold of Mr. Jaffry, called on Mr. Ledbetter, who called in the business manager -- and your Uncle Martin told them that unless they printed the truth, and every bit of it, and printed it at once, he was going to put up the money to start an opposition paper that _would print the truth_.

    The Sturdy Oak A composite Novel of American Politics by fourteen American authors Mary Heaton Vorse 1920

Comments

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  • see I + Not-I = Everything for what may be, for some, a surprise...

    December 22, 2006

  • Without pretense, absolute, honest, archetypical...

    December 19, 2007

  • "Although this sentence begins with the word because, it is false."

    -Douglas Hofstadter

    January 25, 2008

  • 'The truth is more important than the facts.' -Frank Lloyd Wright

    February 19, 2008

  • All Faith is false, all Faith is true:

     Truth is the shattered mirror strown

    In myriad bits; while each believes

     his little bit the whole to own.

    The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi, Richard F. Burton, translation

    September 14, 2008

  • "All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." -- Arthur Schopenhauer

    July 15, 2009

  • When old age shall this generation waste,

    Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe

    Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,

    "Beauty is truth, truth beauty"---that is all

    Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

    -John Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn

    July 26, 2009

  • “Falsehood is never in words; it is in things.”

    ― Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities

    October 30, 2011

  • Falsehood is never in words; it is in things.

    Sorry, Italo, but I call shenanigans. This is pseudo-profundity of the worst kind.

    October 30, 2011

  • As I remember it Invisible Cities is a kind of platonic dialogue about various concepts drawn from observations of urban life in different cities. Just because the line appears in the book doesn't mean the author necessarily believes it. That said I can't recall the particular context of the falsehood line or whose voice it represents.

    As the mountain turns to turgid blancmange, and the eagle scratches a flea of doom, what do you have against pseudo-profundity? The third eye must gaze far beyond the shadow of thy monobrow.

    October 31, 2011