truth

English

Alternative forms

  • trewth (obsolete)
  • Truth (sometimes when referring to religious truth)

Etymology

From Middle English truthe, trewthe, treowthe, 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 Norwegian trygd (“trustworthiness, security, insurance”), Icelandic tryggð (“loyalty, fidelity”).

Pronunciation

  • enPR: trōōth, IPA(key): /tɹuːθ/
  • (US) IPA(key): /t͡ʃɹuːθ/
  • Audio (US)(file)
  • Rhymes: -uːθ

Noun

truth (usually uncountable, plural truths)

  1. The state or quality of being true to someone or something.
    Truth to one's own feelings is all-important in life.
  2. (archaic) Faithfulness, fidelity.
    • Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)
      Alas! they had been friends in youth, / But whispering tongues can poison truth.
  3. (obsolete) A pledge of loyalty or faith.
  4. True facts, genuine depiction or statements of reality.
    The truth is that our leaders knew a lot more than they were letting on.
    • Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)
      The truth depends on, or is only arrived at by, a legitimate deduction from all the facts which are truly material.
    • 2014 June 21, “Magician’s brain”, in The Economist, volume 411, number 8892:
      The truth is that [Isaac] Newton was very much a product of his time. The colossus of science was not the first king of reason, Keynes wrote after reading Newton’s unpublished manuscripts. Instead “he was the last of the magicians”.
  5. Conformity to fact or reality; correctness, accuracy.
    There was some truth in his statement that he had no other choice.
    • 2012 January 1, Robert M. Pringle, “How to Be Manipulative”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 1, page 31:
      As in much of biology, the most satisfying truths in ecology derive from manipulative experimentation. Tinker with nature and quantify how it responds.
  6. Conformity to rule; exactness; close correspondence with an example, mood, model, etc.
  7. That which is real, in a deeper sense; spiritual or ‘genuine’ reality.
    The truth is what is.
    Alcoholism and redemption led me finally to truth.
  8. (countable) Something acknowledged to be true; a true statement or axiom.
    Hunger and jealousy are just eternal truths of human existence.
    • 1813, Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
      It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.
  9. (physics, dated) Topness. (See also truth quark.)

Synonyms

  • See Thesaurus:truth

Antonyms

Derived terms

Translations

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout#Translations.

Verb

truth (third-person singular simple present truths, present participle truthing, simple past and past participle truthed)

  1. (obsolete, transitive) To assert as true; to declare; to speak truthfully.
    Had they [the ancients] dreamt this, they would have truthed it heaven. — Ford.
  2. To make exact; to correct for inaccuracy.
    ground truth
  3. (nonstandard, intransitive) To tell the truth.
    1966, You keep lying, when you oughta be truthin' — Nancy Sinatra, "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'"

See also

Anagrams

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