ˈtrüth noun
( plural truths -üthz also -üths)
Etymology: Middle English trewthe, treuthe, from Old English trēowth, trīewth; akin to Old High German ge triuwida fidelity, Old Norse tryggth faith, trustiness; derivative from the root of English true (I)
1.
a. archaic : the quality or state of being faithful : fidelity , constancy
whispering tongues can poison truth — S.T.Coleridge
b. : sincerity in character, action, and speech : genuineness in expressing feeling or belief : truthfulness , honesty
gives a man a clear conscious view of his own opinions and judgments, a truth in developing them — J.H.Newman
the absolute truth of his speech, and the rectitude of his behavior — R.W.Emerson
2. : something that is true or held to be true: as
a.
(1) : the real state of affairs : something that is the case : fact
the hard truth was that few of America's allies believed that the … islands were worth fighting for — Newsweek
the present definition of insanity has little relation to the truths of mental life — B.N.Cardozo
(2) : the body of things, events, and facts that make up the universe : actual existence : actuality
the facets of reality … together comprising what the human spirit can call truth — General Education in a Free Society
(3) often capitalized : a fundamental or spiritual reality conceived of as being partly or wholly transcendent of perceived actuality and experience
modern man … was capable of the relative and changing truths of science, incapable and afraid of any supratemporal truth reached by Reason's metaphysical effort or of the divine — Jacques Maritain
got only the facts and not the truth — W.A.White
(4) : the world of a particular person or in a particular manner
a psychotic's truth is what “I” make it — Weston La Barre
the truth of speculative inquiry had been replaced by the truth of empirical investigation — R.M.Weaver
b.
(1) : a true relation or account
to say truth , it can only be regarded as a kind of literary curiosity — Daniel George
truth is stranger than fiction
(2) : a judgment, proposition, statement, or idea that accords with fact or reality, is logically or intuitively necessary, or follows by sound reasoning from established or necessary truths
two plus two equals four … that is a truth anywhere — W.J.Reilly
there are truths which cannot be verified, yet we cannot help accepting them as true — Rubin Gotesky
specifically : a proposition or statement taken as an axiom, postulate, or principle in a field of study or inquiry
questioned the basic truths of thermodynamics
(3) : truism , platitude
a truth we are in danger of forgetting — Marie Hildegarde
(4) : a notion having wide and uncritical acceptance among a group or in a field and liable to be proved false
worshipped their flimsy hypotheses into truths — Weston La Barre
c. : the body of true statements and propositions ; also : the body of statements and propositions accepted, studied, or proved in a field
seems to suggest that these are different and unrelated truths — theological truth, psychotherapeutic truth, political truth — R.L.Howe
every way of abstracting produces its own kind of truth — S.I.Hayakawa
3.
a. : relationship, conformity, or agreement with fact or reality or among true facts or propositions : the property in a conception, judgment, statement, proposition, belief, or opinion of being in accord with what is in fact or in necessity
truth (or falsity) is a property of declarative sentences — Philip Hallie
the test for truth is objective and is not concerned with ministering to subjective feelings, needs, or desires — Jim Cork
— see coherence theory , correspondence theory , empirical truth , formal truth , metaphysical truth , normative truth , pragmatism , semantic conception
b. chiefly Britain : true 2
these squares must be tested for truth — Laurence Town
her propeller shaft was a trifle out of truth — C.S.Forester
c.
(1) : fidelity to an original or a possible original
an ignorant, uneducated man may be a competent judge of the truth of the representation of a sandal — Joshua Reynolds
ability to build up the truth of his characters through spare, pungent dialogue — Arthur Knight
(2) : the conformity of a work of art to the essential significance of the subject, to the artist's conception or intent, or to some standard : the coherence of form and content in an apparently necessary whole
what the imagination seizes as Beauty must be Truth — whether it existed before or not — John Keats
a sturdy example of functional truth in architecture — American Guide Series: Vermont
4.
a. often capitalized : abstract truth personified as a goddess
b. capitalized , Christian Science : god
Synonyms:
veracity , verity , verisimilitude : truth is a general term ranging in meaning from a transcendent idea to an indication of conformity with fact and of avoidance of error, misrepresentation, or falsehood
the truths of religion are more like the truths of poetry than like the truths of science; that is, they are vision and insight, apprehended by the whole man, and not merely by the analysing mind — Times Literary Supplement
truth as the opposite of error and of falsehood — C.W.Eliot
veracity commonly indicates rigid and unfailing adherence to, observance of, or respect for truth
question an opponent's veracity
his passion for veracity always kept him from taking any unfair rhetorical advantages of an opponent — Aldous Huxley
I cannot, indeed, guarantee the absolute veracity of any of my apparently authentic law reports — J.R.Sutherland
verity usually designates the quality of a state or thing in being true or entirely in accordance with factual reality or with what should be so regarded; sometimes the word designates that which is marked by lasting, ultimate, transcendent value
most primitive and national religions have also started out, naturally enough, with the assumption of their own verity and importance — A.L.Kroeber
the old verities and truths of the heart, the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed — love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice — William Faulkner
verisimilitude usually indicates the quality of a representation that causes one to accept it as true
to convey human nature in fiction requires the highest degree of verisimilitude: events that seem just like those of life as the reader's experience has led him to conceive of life must happen to people who seem just like human beings in a succession which seems just like the course of human affairs — E.K.Brown
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- in truth