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Definition: True |
TrueAdjective1. Consistent with fact or reality; not false; "the story is true"; "it is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatever for supposing it true"- B. Russell; "the true meaning of the statement". 2. Not synthetic or spurious; of real or natural origin; "real mink"; "true gold". 3. Conforming to definitive criteria; "the horseshoe crab is not a true crab"; "Pythagoras was the first true mathematician". 4. Accurately placed or thrown; "his aim was true"; "he was dead on target". 5. Devoted (sometimes fanatically) to a cause or concept or truth; "true believers bonded together against all who disagreed with them". 6. Expressing or given to expressing the truth; "a true statement"; "gave truthful testimony"; "a truthful person". 7. Worthy of being depended on; "a dependable worker"; "an honest working stiff"; "a reliable source of information"; "he was true to his word"; "I would be true for there are those who trust me". 8. Not pretended; sincerely felt or expressed; "genuine emotion"; "her interest in people was unfeigned"; "true grief". 9. Rightly so called; "true courage"; "a spirit which true men have always admired"; "a true friend". 10. : determined with reference to the earth's axis rather than the magnetic poles; "true north is geographic north". 11. : having a legally established claim; "the legitimate heir"; "the true and lawful king". 12. : in tune; accurate in pitch; "a true note". 13. : accurately fitted; level; "the window frame isn't quite true". 14. : reliable as a basis for action; "a true prophesy". Adverb1. As acknowledged; "true, she is the smartest in her class". Noun1. Proper alignment; the property possessed by something that is in correct or proper alignment: "out of true". Verb1. Make level, square, balanced, or concentric; "true up the cylinder of an engine". Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "true" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1010. (references) |
Note: True \True\, adjective. [Comparative Truer; superlative Truest.]. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Aerospace | 1. Related to or measured from true north. 2. Actual, as contrasted with fictitious, as true sun. 3. Related to a fixed point, either on the earth or in space, as true wind; in contrast with relative.4. Corrected, as true altitude. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Roughly speaking, logic is the study of prescriptive systems of reasoning, that is, systems proposed as guides for how people (as well, perhaps, as other intelligent beings/machines/systems) ought to reason. Logic says which forms of inference are valid and which are not. Traditionally, logic is studied as a branch of philosophy, but it can also be considered a branch of mathematics. How people actually reason is usually studied under other headings, including cognitive psychology.
Logos: some words about logic
Logic is traditionally divided into deductive reasoning, concerned with what follows logically from given premises, and inductive reasoning, concerned with how we can go from some number of observed events to a reliable generalization.
As a science, logic defines the structure of statement and argument and devises formulae by which these are codified. Implicit in a study of logic is the understanding of what makes a good argument and what arguments are fallacious.
Philosophical logic deals with formal descriptions of natural language. Most philosophers assume that the bulk of "normal" proper reasoning can be captured by logic, if one can find the right method for translating ordinary language into that logic.
Following are more specific discussions of some systems of logic. See also: list of topics in logic.
Aristotelian logic
Aristotelian logic was pioneered by Aristotle. Although it is possible that Aristotle was taught by someone else, the earliest study of reasoning can be attributed to Aristotle. Aristotle and his followers held that two of the most important principles of logic are the law of non-contradiction and the law of excluded middle. This kind of logic is now given various names to distinguish it from more recent systems of logic, e.g., Aristotelian logic or classical two-valued logic.
The law of non-contradiction states that no proposition is both true and false and law of excluded middle states that a proposition must either be true or false. In combination, these laws require two truth values that are mutually exclusive. A proposition can be either true or false, but cannot be both at the same time.
Some have considered classical logic to be just like a mathematical theory, and in particular the laws of non-contradiction and the excluded middle to be simply axioms of the theory, which have to be assumed without proof. In fact this is not so:
A better way to look at these laws is that, without them, the logic still remains valid, but a whole lot of illogic becomes valid as well. Thus, those laws are simply filters for stripping away the illogic, and leaving only the part that doesn't depend on them—the logic.
- Assume the law of non-contradiction is false. This means it can still be true, so therefore it is true (it is only the law of non-contradiction that prevents " can be" from necessarily becoming "is"). Therefore classical logic still remains valid.
- Assume the law of the excluded middle is not true. It does not follow that the law of the excluded middle is false, or indeed that any other proposition of classical logic which was true is now false.
- More generally, consider the proposition: "The validity of Rule X is fundamental to the validity of logic. Unless you assume the validity of Rule X, logic is not valid". Now assume that Rule X (whatever it might be) is false. The conclusion that logic is not valid has to follow by logical reasoning. But if logic is not valid, this reasoning is also invalid, and the conclusion cannot be drawn. Thus, the validity of logic is independent of the assumption of validity of any of its supposed laws. (This is an argument by self reference.)
Formal logic
See also Propositional calculusFormal logic, also called symbolic logic, is concerned primarily with the structure of reasoning. Formal logic deals with the relationships between concepts and provides a way to compose proofs of statements. In formal logic, concepts are rigorously defined, and sentences are translated into a precise, compact, and unambiguous symbolic notation.
Some examples of symbolic notation are:
This statement defines p is 1 + 2 = 3 and that is true.
- p: 1 + 2 = 3
Two propositions can be combined using conjunction, disjunction or conditional. They are called binary logical operators. Such combined propositions are called compound propositions. For example,
In this case, and is a conjunction. The two propositions can differ totally from each other.
- p: 1 + 1 = 2 and "logic is the study of reasoning."
In mathematics and computer science, one may want to state a proposition depending on some variables:
This proposition can be either true or false according to the variable n.
- p: n is an odd integer.
A proposition with free variables is called propositional function with domain of discourse D. To form an actual proposition, one uses quantifiers. For every n, or for some n, can be specified by quantifiers: either the universal quantifier or the existential quantifier. For example,
This can be written also as:
- for all n in D, P(n).
The standard situation in mathematical analysis since Weierstrass, the quantifications for all ... there exists or there exists ... such that for all (and more complex analogues) can be expressed, instead of symbols. This may be done for clarity in certain cases also.
Mathematical logic
Mathematical logic is the use of formal logic to study mathematical reasoning. At the beginning of the twentieth century, philosophical logicians including (Frege, Russell) attempted to prove that mathematics could be entirely reduced to logic. They held that in discovering the "logical form" of a sentence, you were somehow revealing the "right" way to say it, or uncovering some previously hidden essence. The reduction failed, but in the process, logic took on much of the notation and methodology of mathematics, and nowadays logic is accepted as an accurate way to describe mathematical reasoning.
Philosophical logic
Philosophical logic is essentially a continuation of the traditional discipline that was called "Logic" before it was supplanted by the invention of Mathematical logic. It is concerned with the elucidation of ideas such as reference, predication, identity, truth, quantification, existence, and others. Philosophical logic has a much greater concern with the connection between natural language and logic. See Philosophical logic.
Predicate logic
See also First-order predicate calculusGottlob Frege, in his Begriffsschrift, discovered a way to rearrange many sentences to make their logical form clear, to show how sentences relate to one another in certain respects. Prior to Frege, formal logic had not been successful beyond the level of sentential logic: it could represent the structure of sentences composed of other sentences using such words as "and", "or", and "not," but it could not break sentences down into smaller parts. It could not show how "Cows are animals" entails "Parts of cows are parts of animals."
Sentential logic explains the workings of words such as "and", "but", "or", "not", "if-then", "if and only if", and "neither-nor". Frege expanded logic to include words such as "all", "some", and "none". He showed how we can introduce variables and "quantifiers" to rearrange sentences.
- "All humans are mortal" becomes "All things x are such that, if x is a human then x is mortal." which may be written symbolically
.
- "Some humans are vegetarian" becomes "There exists some (at least one) thing x such that x is human and x is vegetarian" which may be written symbolically
Frege treats simple sentences without subject nouns as predicates and applies them to "dummy objects" (x). The logical structure in discourse about objects can then be operated on according to the rules of sentential logic, with some additional details for adding and removing quantifiers. Frege's work started contemporary formal logic.no,
Frege adds to sentential logic (1) the vocabulary of quantifiers (upside-down A, backward E) and variables, (2) a semantics that explains that the variables denote individual objects and the quantifiers have something like the force of "all" "some" in relation to those objects, and (3) methods for using these in language. To introduce an "All" quantifier, you assume an arbitrary variable, prove something that must hold true of it, and then prove that it didn't matter which variable you chose, that would have held true. An "All" quantifier can be removed by applying the sentence to any particular object at all. A "Some" (exists) quantifier can be added to a sentence true of any object at all; it can be removed in favor of a term about which you are not already presupposing any information.
Multi-valued Logic
The logics discussed above are all "bivalent" or "two-valued"; that is, the semantics for each of these languages will assign to every sentence either the value "True" or the value "False."
Systems which do not always make this distinction are known as non-Aristotelian logics, or multi-valued logics.
In the early 20th century Jan Łukasiewicz investigated the extension of the traditional true/false values to include a third value, "possible".
Logics such as fuzzy logic have since been devised with an infinite number of "degrees of truth", e.g., represented by a real number between 0 and 1. Bayesian probability can be interpreted as a system of logic where probability is the subjective truth value.
Logic and computers
Logic is extensively used in the fields of artificial intelligence, and computer science.
In the 1950s and 1960s, researchers predicted that when human knowledge could be expressed using logic with mathematical notation, it would be possible to create a machine that reasons, or artificial intelligence. This turned out to be more difficult than expected because of the complexity of human reasoning. Logic programming is an attempt to make computers do logical reasoning and Prolog programming language is commonly used for it.
In symbolic logic and mathematical logic, proofs by humans can be computer-assisted. Using automated theorem proving the machines can find and check proofs, as well as work with proofs too lengthy to be written out by hand.
In computer science, Boolean algebra is the basis of hardware design, as well as much software design.
Logic Puzzles
A large class of elementary logical puzzles can be solved using the laws of boolean algebra and logic truth tables. Familiarity with boolean algebra and its simplification process is a prerequisite to understand the following examples.
Example
On the Keikei Island, there lived two kinds of people -- knights and knaves. The knights always tell the truth, but the knaves always tell a lie.John and Bill are residents of the Keikie Island.
Example 1
John says: We are both knaves.Who is who?
Example 2
John: If Bill is a knave then I'm a knight.Bill: We are different.
Who is who?
Example 3
Logician: Are you both knights? John: Yes or No. Logician: Are you both knaves? John: Yes or No.Who is who?
Solution to Example 1
We can use Boolean algebra to deduce who's who as follows:Let J be true if John is a knight and let B be true if Bill is a knight. Now, either John is a knight and what he said was true, or John is not a knight and what he said was false. Tranlating that into Boolean algebra, we get:
Simplification Process:
Therefore John is a knave and Bill is a knight. Although most people can solve this puzzle without using Boolean algebra, the example still serves as a powerful testament of the power of Boolean algebra in sovling logic puzzles.
- by de Morgan's theorem.
See also analytic proposition; college logic; argument form; validity; soundness; cogency; deduction and induction; lambda calculus; modus ponens; affirming the consequent; modus tollens; disjunctive syllogism, faith, Scientific method; fuzzy logic; history of logic; set theory
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Logic."
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
True was the third album by British New Romantic band Spandau Ballet, released in 1983. It was heavily influenced by jazz, soul, and R&B, and it reached #1 on the UK charts and the top ten in America. The title track was a top five single in America, and in 1991 was sampled by the spiritual hip-hop act PM Dawn on their single "Set Adrift on Memory Bliss".Other singles from the album included "Gold", "Lifeline", and "Communication". Later releases by the band never equalled the success of True, and they broke up six years later.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "True (album)."
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
TRUE is a town located in Rusk County, Wisconsin. As of the 2000 census, the town had a total population of 291.Geography
According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 60.8 km² (23.5 mi²). 60.3 km² (23.3 mi²) of it is land and 0.5 km² (0.2 mi²) of it is water. The total area is 0.81% water.Demographics
As of the census of 2000, there are 291 people, 107 households, and 83 families residing in the town. The population density is 4.8/km² (12.5/mi²). There are 127 housing units at an average density of 2.1/km² (5.5/mi²). The racial makeup of the town is 99.66% White, 0.00% African American, 0.00% Native American, 0.00% Asian, 0.34% Pacific Islander, 0.00% from other races, and 0.00% from two or more races. 0.00% of the population are Hispanic or Latino of any race. There are 107 households out of which 36.4% have children under the age of 18 living with them, 64.5% are married couples living together, 7.5% have a female householder with no husband present, and 22.4% are non-families. 19.6% of all households are made up of individuals and 11.2% have someone living alone who is 65 years of age or older. The average household size is 2.72 and the average family size is 3.10. In the town the population is spread out with 25.8% under the age of 18, 9.3% from 18 to 24, 27.8% from 25 to 44, 24.1% from 45 to 64, and 13.1% who are 65 years of age or older. The median age is 39 years. For every 100 females there are 122.1 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there are 111.8 males. The median income for a household in the town is $27,857, and the median income for a family is $28,750. Males have a median income of $23,333 versus $18,438 for females. The per capita income for the town is $13,514. 16.8% of the population and 15.4% of families are below the poverty line. Out of the total people living in poverty, 26.0% are under the age of 18 and 15.1% are 65 or older.Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "TRUE, Wisconsin."
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
For the use of "true" and "false" in formal logic, see Logic.
The question, "what is truth?", is much debated by religionists, philosophers, and logicians.
One conventional way of approaching the subject, is to determine the sorts of things that can be true or false. Such truth bearers include statements, propositions, beliefs, sentences and thoughts.
The central problem concerning the notion of truth is to analyse what it means to say of a statement or proposition P that it is true. Intuitively, a statement or proposition P is true if it says of such-and-such a state of affairs, that it is the case. As Aristotle put it in his Metaphysics (Book 4),
A special class of questions that can be asked about truth concern whether this property is objective (roughly, whether a truth bearer is true depends on the facts of reality) or relative to us (e.g., it depends only upon our beliefs, culture, language, point of view, etc.). Theories of truth which adopt the former view are called objectivist and those which adopt the latter view are called relativist. Philosophers generally discuss these questions as issues of epistemology, and ethics, for example; which are issues upon which the idea of truth has a crucial bearing. Accordingly, moral absolutism, relativism, realism, anti-realism, and so forth, are various approaches to the issues crucially impacted by the decision of the question, "what is truth?". We see below that the epistemic theories of truth involve questions concerning the subject ("me","we","they") and the state-of-affairs (concerning which "I", for example, may make statements which are either true or not true).
- To say of what is, that it is, or of what is not, that it is not, is true.
Four standard conceptions of truth
There are, roughly speaking, four broad conceptions of truth that philosophers and logicians have discussed:
Almost any attempt you will see which attempts to define or analyze the notion of truth will fall under one of these four headings. Many commonly-heard attempts to define the notion of truth fall under The Epistemic Conception, which (paradoxically) is the one rejected by almost all contemporary philosophers and logicians (see below). We shall briefly describe these conceptions here:
- The Correspondence Conception of Truth
- The Deflationary Conception of Truth
- The Semantic Conception of Truth
- The Epistemic Conception of Truth
The Correspondence Conception of Truth
Consider first the correspondence theory, associated with Plato, Aristotle, G. E. Moore, Bertrand Russell, Karl Popper, Noam Chomsky and others. We can define it as follows:
So "truth" means "correspondence with the facts." That's a traditional formulation of the theory. So let's try to explain what it says. For example, it's true that some dogs bark if the proposition, "Some dogs bark," corresponds with the facts. Which facts? Actually, just one: the fact that some dogs bark. So suppose that it is a fact that some dogs bark (that's not hard to suppose). Then we can improve our example. We could say: it's true that some dogs bark if, and only if, the proposition, "Some dogs bark," corresponds with the fact that some dogs bark. Or we could say: it's true that God exists if, and only if, the proposition, "God exists," corresponds with the fact that God exists.
- (1) The proposition that P is true iff P corresponds with the facts.
The most commonly cited problem for the correspondence theory is this question: What is this relation of correspondence? When does a proposition correspond with the facts? Well, you can think of correspondence as a sort of matching-up relation -- if a proposition can be matched up with a fact, then it corresponds to that fact. But that's still puzzling, isn't it? I mean, when does a proposition "match up" with a fact? To say that "correspondence" means "matching up" doesn't really shed a whole lot of light on the subject. Bertrand Russell and shortly after, Ludwig Wittgenstein, suggested that proposition and fact "correspond" when their structure is isomorphic. See Kirkham's book cited below for a discussion of this view.
Well, one thing we might observe in any case is that, in order for a proposition to be true, according to the correspondence theory, there must be some fact to which it corresponds. So a fact has to exist in order to be matched up a proposition. And remember, we've already decided which fact that a proposition has to correspond with: the proposition that P has to correspond with the fact that P, if the proposition that P is true.
So here is a suggestion that can help get us around the objection about correspondence. We can say that it is true that P if, and only if, there exists a fact that P. If we put it like that, then we don't have to talk about correspondence at all. We just say: it's true that some dogs bark if, and only if, there exists a fact, that some dogs bark. And we could put it even simpler than that:
So consider that the revised version of the correspondence theory:
- (2) The proposition that P is true iff it is a fact that P.
Examples of this might be:
- (3) P is true when it is a fact that P.
And so on. We can regard that as explaining what it means for a proposition to correspond with a fact: basically, if there is a fact that P, then that fact corresponds with the proposition that P.
- (4a) The proposition that dogs bark is true if it?s a fact that some dogs bark.
- (4b) The proposition that God exists is true if it?s a fact that God exists.
- (4c) The proposition that snow is white is true if it?s a fact that snow is white.
But this reformulation of the theory faces now a different problem. Namely what are facts, and what does it mean to say that facts exist, or that there is some alleged fact? Look at the problem like this. Our reformulation basically says that "true proposition" means "factual proposition". So then we have to ask ourselves: "Have we really explained anything about truth, about true propositions, if we merely said that they are factual? Because then aren't we just letting this other word, fact, do all the work of the word we're confused about, 'true'? And then wouldn't we have to give some account of what facts are?"
There are at least two different ways to reply to this objection. The first way to reply is to actually offer a theory of what facts are. This is something that philosophers, this century, have actually tried to do. They say things like this: facts are basically combinations of objects together with their properties or relations; so the fact that Fido barks is the combination of an object (i.e., Fido) with one of Fido's properties (that he barks).
But of course that is only one kind of fact; there would be other kinds of facts, about all dogs; or about the relation between dogs and cats; and so on. But the idea is that it is possible, anyway, to specify and categorize all those different kinds of facts. And then you've got an answer to the question, "What are facts?" You say: it's one of these sorts of things (pointing to your theory of facts). And when it is asked, "What does it mean for a fact to exist?" you can answer: well, it's for each part of a fact to exist. So if Fido exists, and Fido's barking exists, then the fact that Fido bark exists. And that's what makes it true to say that Fido barks. That's a very appealing way to answer the objection.
The Deflationary Conception of Truth
Another way, which has been perhaps even more popular, particularly in the last 30 years, is to offer an even further stripped-down theory. First, observe that if I say "It's a fact that P", I might as well have just said, "P". If I say, for example, that it's a fact that some dogs bark, then why don't I just say, "Some dogs bark"? Why do I have to declare that it's a fact? If I'm saying it, then I'm implying that it's a fact, am I not? Sure. Well notice that, in the previous theory of truth, these words occur: "it is a fact that P". So then why don?t we just say "P" in place of "it is a fact that P"? I mean, suppose I?m right, and when I say "It?s a fact that P," I really mean nothing more than when I say "P." Then why not just substitute "P" in for "it is a fact that P" in our previous, revised correspondence theory? Then we don't talk about facts at all. So here's the new, even further stripped-down theory:
That's it! Statements of the form (T) are often called T-sentences. And some recent philosophers and logicians have argued that that's basically all there is to say about truth. To understand the notion of truth is to understand and accept all the T-sentences (and to reason in accordance with the equivalence of "P is true" and P).
- (T) The proposition that P is true if P.
The original version of this bare-bones theory was called "the redundancy theory of truth", and it is due to F. P. Ramsey and Alfred Ayer, English philosophers who wrote their works in the 1920s and 1930s. It's called "the redundancy theory" because it basically implies that saying that something is true is always redundant. (This has loose connections with the "performative theory of truth", associated with Peter Strawson.)
The redundancy theory of truth is really a special version of what is now called The Deflationary Conception of Truth, or deflationism for short. Deflationism has two major versions. A version called Minimalism, which has been developed by Paul Horwich (see Horwich 1998, Truth). And a version called Disquotationalism, which has been developed by Hartry Field (see Field 2001 Truth and the Absence of Fact). The minimalist theory takes truth bearers to be propositions and takes, as constituting the notion of truth, statements of the following form:
The disquotational theory in contrast takes sentences as the central truth bearers, and its basic principles take the following form:
- (T*) The proposition that P is true if P.
Roughly, statements of any of the forms (T), (T*) or (T**) are called "T-sentences", and deflationists take T-sentences to be central in characterizing the notion of truth.
- (T**) The sentence "P" is true if P.
The idea is that, instead of saying, "It is true that some dogs bark," you could, without loss of meaning, say simply, "Some dogs bark". In principle, we could always eliminate talk of truth, in favor of simply forthrightly asserting whatever it is that we say is true.
Now there's one simple objection to the theory that might occur to you. You might say: "Well, if I claim, 'Pigs fly', then the deflationary theory says that it's true that pigs fly! If I claim that philosophy is simple, then it's true that philosophy is simple!" This is a bad objection. It's bad because it has the deflationary theory wrong. The deflationary theory doesn't say: "It's true that P iff I claim that P." It says: "It's true that P if P." So, if pigs fly, if pigs do indeed fly, then it's true that pigs fly. Nothing wrong with saying that: that's correct. If pigs did fly, then it would be true that pigs fly. But that's quite different from saying that, if I claim that pigs fly, then it's true that pigs fly. So the deflationary theory doesn't say that whatever anyone says is true. What it does say is that, if I say something, then I'm committed to saying that what I said is true.
And this makes some sense. Suppose, on the one hand, I say, "God exists! There is a supreme being!" Then suppose on the other hand that I say, "It's true that God exists! It's true that there is a supreme being!" Have I added anything to my original claim when I say that it's true? I mean, have I added anything other than emphasis and a declaration that I really do believe what I'm saying? The redundancy version of deflationism thinks not; saying that something is true is only adding emphasis.
But some people disagree. They think that there is something that the redundancy theory is missing. They think there's got to be some reason why we came up with this word "true". The redundancy version of deflationism says basically that it's only a term of emphasis. But is that really all it is? Isn't the idea, rather, that one specifically wishes to point to the fact that a proposition bears some relation to reality -- correspondence, describing the facts, something like that?
There is a second, and important, objection to the redundancy version of deflationism. We can eliminate "true" from a statement like,
to obtain just,
- (5) "Snow is white" is true.
But we cannot do likewise when we attribute truth to a statement by some kind of indirect reference. For example,
- (6) Snow is white.
Here, we do not have a quotation of a specific sentence or an expression of the form "that P". Rather, we have a term "The last thing Plato said" and this indirectly refers to some statement or proposition. The redundancy view of truth provides no guidance for eliminating "true" from this statement. Ramsey himself was aware of this, and suggested something along the lines of the following
- (7) The last thing Plato said was true.
So, the idea is that we can eliminate "true" from (7) by using an infinitely long conjunction of statements of the form
- (8) (If the last thing Plato said was "Snow is white", then snow is white) and (If the last thing Plato said was "Penguins waddle", then penguins waddle) and (If the last thing Plato said was "Grass is pink", then grass is pink) and ... etc.
Similarly, contemporary deflationists such as Horwich and Field do not in general advocate the older redundancy view, and do think that "true" is not merely a method of emphasis. First, both minimalists and disquotationalists argue that truth just is a property which satisfies the "equivalence condition" that P and "P is true" are equivalent. Second, disquotationalists have further argued that a property (or predicate) satisfying this condition has an important logical use, which permits one to express infinitely many statements all in one go. For example, if we wish to assert each statement that a mathematical theory T proves, we should have to list them all, and then say, one by one:
- (9) If the last thing Plato said was "P", then P.
The modern deflationists (following W. V. Quine) have pointed out that instead of asserting all of these particular statements, one can instead say simply:
- (10) S1, S2, S2, ...
So, instead of asserting all the theorems of T one by one, you can simply say a single statement (6), "All theorems of T are true".
- (11) All theorems of T are true.
The Semantic Conception of Truth
In some ways related to both the Correspondence Conception and the Deflationary Conception is the Semantic Conception of Truth, due to Alfred Tarski, a Polish logician who published his work on truth in the 1930s. Part of Tarski's motivation in developing this conception of truth was to resolve the Liar paradox and this led Tarski to several interesting mathematical discoveries. In particular, Tarski's Indefinablity Theorem, which is similar to Goedel's Incompleteness Theorem. Tarski took the T-sentences not to give the theory of truth itself, but to be a constraint on defining the notion of truth. That is, in Tarski's view, any adequate definition or theory of truth must imply all of the T-sentences (this constraint is known as Convention T). Tarski developed a rather complicated theory, involving what is known as an inductive definition of truth and introduced further ideas, such as the distinction between object language and meta-language (which is important in avoiding the semantic paradoxes such as the Liar Paradox).
For a language L containing ~ ("not"), & ("and"), v ("or") and quantifiers ("for all" and "there exists"), Tarski's inductive definition of truth looks like this:
These explain how the truth conditions of complex sentences (built up from connectives and quantifiers) can be reduced to the truth conditions of their constituents. The simplest constituents are atomic sentences, and Tarski defined truth for these as follows:
- (i) A negation ~A is true iff A is not true.
- (ii) A conjunction A&B is true iff A is true and B is true
- (iii) A disjunction A v B is true iff A is true or B is true.
- (iv) A universal statement "for all x A(x)" is true iff each object satisfies "A(x)".
- (v) An existential statement "there exists x A(x)" is true iff there is an object which satisfies "A(x)".
Tarski's semantic conception of truth plays an important role in modern logic and also in much contemporary philosophy of language. It is rather controversial matter whether Tarski's semantic theory should be counted as either a correspondence theory or as a deflationary theory. Tarski himself seems to have intended his account to be a refinement of the classical correspondence theory.
- (vi) An atomic sentence F(x1,...,xn) is true (relative to an assignment of values to the variables x1, ..., xn)) if the corresponding values of variables bear the relation denoted by the predicate F.
The Epistemic Conception of Truth
Coherence Theory
Another conception of truth that differs drastically from the previous conceptions (the correspondence theory, the deflationary theories and Tarski's semantic conception) is the Epistemic Conception of Truth. Our first example of this is called Coherence Theory. This conception of truth is associated with the Idealist school of philosophers, such as Hegel and so on. The coherence theory offers another definition of "truth". It says that truth depends on coherence, as follows:
Roughly, P is true if it coheres with a system of propositions that it's part of. Typically a "system of propositions" is understood as a group of propositions that someone person believes. So if you like, you can think of "system of propositions" as meaning a belief system. It is because of this reference to beliefs and their justification that it is called an epistemic theory of truth. Then the idea is that if your belief system is coherent, then your beliefs are true. And if you come across a belief that doesn't cohere with the others, then you can toss it out as incoherent and thus false.
- (12) The proposition that P is true iff P is part of a coherent system of propositions.
We shall not try and give an example of a coherent system or a belief that is true because it is part of the system. The reason isn't that the coherence theory is obviously wrong, but because the coherence theory is better regarded as a theory about justified belief, that is, when beliefs are justified or rational. Conseqeuntly, the coherence theory is better regarded as a theory about when beliefs are justified than as a theory about when beliefs are true.
Consensus Theory
A related class of epistemic theories of truth, popular with sociologists and those who emphasize that all statements are social, interpersonal acts, is the Consensus Theory of Truth. In its most elementary form it says roughly that,
This account of truth seems obviously mistaken. For a proposition might be accepted by a community and yet be false (there are countlessly many examples). Similarly, a proposition might be true and yet rejected by the members of a community. According to this primitive version of Consensus Theory, which defines consensus in terms of actual beliefs that prevail in a group or society, when people believed that the Earth was flat, the proposition "The Earth is flat" was true, even though the Earth wasn't in fact flat. So, quite clearly, this analysis of truth is a non-starter.
- (13) The proposition that P is true relative to a community C iff all members of the community accept P.
Furthermore, a primitive version Consensus Theory based on factual consensus implies both relativism and anti-fallibilism. It says that whether a statement is true depends upon a perspective, and so a statement may be "true" for one community and yet "false" for another. Closely connected, the theory is also anti-fallibilist: it implies that mistakes and errors are impossible. According to primitive Consensus Theory, one simply cannot be mistaken about things, at least so long as one agrees with one's own community. (Note that the Correspondence, Deflationary and Semantic Conceptions are fallibilist, since they separate truth from belief.)
For these reasons (and others), no serious contemporary philosopher accepts a Consensus Theory of truth based on factual consensus.
Pragmatism
Two further epistemic theories of truth were introduced by the American philosophers, Charles Peirce (pronounced "purse") and William James in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Peirce's theory is called long run pragmatism. William James's theory is more usually associated with the term "pragmatic theory of truth'. Both theories are, however, examples of the Epistemic Conception of Truth, since they closely relate the notion of truth to the notions of belief, acceptance and justification.
Peirce's version, roughly stated is:
So, Peirce's long-run pragmatist theory of truth is rather like the Consensus Theory mentioned above, but in order to avoid its problems, it is a long-run and idealized version of consensus. Truth is what consensus will be at the ideal limit of scientific inquiry. Peirce invites us to imagine what science will be like a few hundred, or perhaps a few thousand years from now. He predicted that if human inquiry (truth-seeking) adopted the scientific method, then it would, at some point converge and reach a limit; there would be basically no questions left to be answered, and the resulting systems of beliefs would be both true and even complete. And if some proposition now being considered would be something that everyone would agree on, in that ideal limit of inquiry, then that proposition is true. And that's what it means to say that a proposition is true: that it is part of the consensus that would exist in the ideal limit of inquiry.
- (14) The proposition that P is true if P is agreed upon in the consensus achieved at the ideal limit of inquiry.
One appeal of this theory is that it is anti-sceptical. It implies that the truth is knowable: it implies that if something is true, then it can be known to be true (in the ideal limit of scientific inquiry). Now, suppose you thought that all truth is knowable. In that case, all truths could be known in the ideal limit of inquiry. In the perfect science all truths would be known. There wouldn't be any truths left over. So then why not say that there is no more to truth than that what that perfect science would tell us? That would simplify matters. There would be no need to look for any sort of correspondence between propositions and the world, or between propositions and a coherent system of propositions. Truth, since it is knowable, is whatever the perfect science would tell us in the ideal limit of inquiry.
William James's version of the pragmatic theory of truth is roughly,
James's version of pragmatism was been taken up by later philosophers such as John Dewey and, most controversially, Richard Rorty.
- (15) The proposition that P is true iff P is useful to believe (or: believing P "works").
Several objections are commonly made to pragmatist account of truth, of either sort. First, a sceptical objection: maybe there are some truths that aren't knowable. What reason is there to think that every true proposition must be knowable? Is it not possible that there are some true propositions that we can't ever know, not even in some ideal limit of inquiry? Let me give you an example. There are probably complex processes going on inside of black holes; but black holes are so gravitationally powerful that not even light can escape from them. So we could not possibly get knowledge of some specific events going on, right now, inside some black hole. Nonetheless there would seem to be some facts there; scientists might even know enough to be able to describe what might be going on; the point, though, is that they can't confirm that it is going on, even if they can describe, in generalities, what might be going on. So the first problem for pragmatism is that it appears that there might be some truths that would not appear in the perfected science in the ideal limit of inquiry -- because they cannot be known at all. You can probably think of more examples yourself; maybe truths about what went on in the minds of people long dead, or facts about very distant events.
A second objection, due originally to Bertrand Russell (1907) in a discussion of James's theory, is that pragmatism mixes up the notion of truth with epistemology. Pragmatism describes an indicator or a sign of truth. It really cannot be regarded as a theory of the meaning of the word "true". Do you see the difference? There's a difference between stating an indicator and giving the meaning. For example, when the streetlights turn at the end of a day, that's an indicator, a sign, that evening is coming on. It would be an obvious mistake to say that the word "evening" just means "the time that the streetlights turn on." In the same way, while it might be an indicator of truth, that a proposition is part of that perfect science at the ideal limit of inquiry, that just isn't what "truth" means.
Russell's objection isn't so much an argument against pragmatism, so much as it is a request -- that we make sure that we aren't confusing an indicator of truth with the meaning of the concept truth. There is a difference between the two and pragmatism confuses them.
There are many other objections to pragmatism. For example, how do we define what it means to say a belief "works"? Or that it is "useful to believe"? Presumably, it is sometimes useful to tell lies. In this case, pragmatism implies that lies can be true. Presumably this is an absurd conclusion. Suppose that religion is useful to believe. Then, according to James's theory, it is true. But why should it follow that God exists merely because believing that God exists is useful? More worryingly, in the Soviet Union under Stalin, certain beliefs concerning biology were adopted because they were "useful to believe" and this led to what is called Lysenkoism.
Another objection---which can be applied to all of the epistemic theories---is that pragmatism appears to be incompatible with the T-scheme mentioned above (and Tarski's inductive definition, in relation to the connecitves ~, & and so on). According to the T-scheme, if ~A is true, then A is not true. But presumably both a proposition A and its negation ~A might be useful to believe, which contradicts the T-scheme. For any determinate proposition A, either A is true or ~A is true. But it might be that neither is useful to believe. And so on.
A final objection is that pragmatism of James's variety (and Rorty's) entails both relativism and infallibilism. What is useful for you to believe might not be useful for me to believe. It follows that "truth" for you is different from "truth" for me (and that the relevant facts don't matter). This is relativism. Furthermore, if I consistently believe what is useful (for me) to believe, then (according to James's pragmatism) I never makes mistakes: I am infallible, on James's account. Indeed, everyone is infallible, at least insofar as they believe what is useful to believe. This seems like an absurd consequence of (James's version of) pragmatism.
A viable, more sophisticated consensus theory of truth, a mixture of Peircean theory with speech-act theory and social theory, is that presented and defended by Jürgen Habermas, which sets out the universal pragmatic conditions of ideal consensus and responds to many objections to earlier versions of a pragmatic, consensus theory of truth. Habermas distinguishes explicitly between factual consensus, i.e. the beliefs that happen to hold in a particular community, and rational consensus, i.e. consensus attained in conditions approximating an "ideal speech situation", in which inquirers or members of a community suspend or bracket prevailing beliefs and engage in rational discourse aimed at truth and governed by the force of the better argument, under conditions in which all participants in discourse have equal opportunities to engage in constative (assertions of fact), normative, and expressive speech acts, and in which discourse is not distorted by the intervention of power or the internalization of systematic blocks to communication.
Philosophy
After this very brief discussion of theories of truth, we note that contemporary philosophers tend to favor either some revised correspondence theory, or the semantic conception of Tarski or some deflationary theory; but we just haven't discussed them in enough depth to be able to say that with any certainty. But this survey introduces you to the terrain: among different conceptions of truth there are the correspondence conception, the deflationary conception (including the redundancy theory, minimalism and disquotationalism), Tarski's semantic conception and the epistemic conception (including the coherence and consensus theories and pragmatism).
With such a variety to choose from at the very least you should be convinced that you don't have to rest content with any sort of relativism that says that truth is just the same as belief.
Quote
- "Truth - Something somehow discreditable to someone." — H.L. Mencken
- "Truth exists - only lies are invented." — Georges Braque
- "Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth." — Sherlock Holmes (in "A Scandal in Bohemia" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
See also
- Unity of the proposition
- Liar paradox
- Alfred Tarski
- Relativism
- Modal logic
References
[1] Blackburn, S and Simmons K. 1999. Truth. Oxford University Press. A good anthology of classic articles, including papers by James, Russell, Ramsey, Tarski and more recent work.
[2] Field, H. 2001. Truth and the Absence of Fact. Oxford.
[3] Horwich, P. Truth. Oxford.
[4] Habermas, Jürgen. 2003. Truth and Justification. MIT Press.
[5] Kirkham, Richard 1992: Theories of Truth. Bradford Books. A very good reference book.
[6] http://www.ditext.com/tarski/tarski.html Tarski's classic 1944 paper on the Semantic Conception of Truth online.
[7] Williams, Bernard. 2002. Truth & Truthfulness: an essay in genealogy. Princeton University Press
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Truth."
Synonyms: TrueSynonyms: dead on target (adj), dependable (adj), genuine (adj), honest (adj), lawful (adj), on-key (adj), real (adj), reliable (adj), rightful(a) (adj), straight (adj), true(a) (adj), true(p) (adj), truthful (adj), unfeigned (adj), admittedly (adv), avowedly (adv), confessedly (adv), true up (v). (additional references) |
| Antonyms: false (adj), untruthful (adj). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Assent | Adverb: yes, yea, ay, aye, true; good; well; very well, very true; well and good; granted; even so, just so; to be sure, "thou hast said", you said it, you said a mouthful; truly, exactly, precisely, that's just it, indeed, certainly, you bet, certes, ex concesso; of course, unquestionably, assuredly, no doubt, doubtless; naturally, natch. |
Existence | Real, actual, positive, absolute; true; substantial, substantive; self-existing, self-existent; essential. |
Imagination | General meaning, broad meaning, substantial meaning, colloquial meaning, literal meaning, plain meaning, simple meaning, natural meaning, unstrained meaning, true; (exact) meaning, honest; meaning, prima facie; (manifest) meaning; letter of the law. |
Observance | Adjective: observant, faithful, true, loyal; honorable; true as the dial to the sun, true as the needle to the pole; punctual, punctilious; literal; (exact); as good as one's word. |
Orthodoxy | Adjective: orthodox, sound, strick, faithful, catholic, schismless, Christian, evangelical, scriptural, divine, monotheistic; true. |
Probity | Constant, constant as the northern star; faithful, loyal, staunch; true, true blue, true to one's colors, true to the core, true as the needle to the pole; "marble-constant"; true-hearted, trusty, trustworthy; as good as one's word, to be depended on, incorruptible. |
Straightness | Adjective: straight; rectilinear, rectilineal; direct, even, right, true, in a line; unbent, virgate; Verb: undeviating, unturned, undistorted, unswerving; straight as an arrow; (direct); inflexible. |
Truth | Adjective: real, actual; (existing); veritable, true; right, correct; certain; substantially true, categorically true, definitively true; true to the letter, true as gospel; unimpeachable; veracious; unreconfuted, unconfuted; unideal, unimagined; realistic. |
Veracity | Adjective: truthful, true; veracious, veridical; scrupulous; (honorable); sincere, candid, frank, open, straightforward, unreserved; open hearted, true hearted, simple-hearted; honest, trustworthy; undissembling; (dissemble; ); guileless, pure; truth-loving; unperjured; true blue, as good as one's word; unaffected, unfeigned, bona fide; outspoken, ingenuous; (artless); undisguised; (real). |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: True |
| English words defined with "true": True as touch, true blackberry, true glottis, true statement, true to, true to life. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "true": Contentment is true Riches ♦ dead true ♦ the X that can be Y is not the true X, true azimuth, True BASIC, true colour, true crocodiles, true flycatchers, true hacker, true prime vertical, true ruby, true width. (references) |
| Etymologies containing "true": Warlock. (references) |
| Non-English Usage: "True" is also a word in the following language with English translations in parentheses. Danish (menace, threaten). |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | This is a true story of how friendships run deeper than blood (Sleepers; writing credit: Barry Levinson) It's true I was their number one son but they treated me like number two (Batman Returns; writing credit: Bob Kane; Daniel Waters) Mathematics is the only true universal language (Contact; writing credit: Carl Sagan;) This quarter was my wish, and it didn't come true. So I'm taking it back (Goonies; writing credit: Chris Columbus) Yes sir, it's true. This man has no dick (Ghostbusters; writing credit: Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis.) | |
Lyrics | But I see your true colors (True Colors; performing artist: Cyndi Lauper) True love (True Blue; performing artist: Madonna) Now that we know that its true (Caught Up in You; performing artist: 38 Special) What you believe is true (Playas Gon' Play; performing artist: 3LW) DOG FOR LIFE BUT KEEP IT TRUE (Come Back In One Piece; performing artist: Aaliyah) | |
Clever | True irreverence is disrespect for another man's god. (references; author: Mark Twain) Under capitalism man exploits man; under socialism the reverse is true. (references; author: Polish Proverb) The secret of true greatness is simplicity. (references; author: unknown) A true friend walks in when the world walks out. (references; author: unknown) Never say anything unless it is kind, necessary, and true. (references; author: unknown) | |
Movie/TV Titles | True Love (2003) Frankenstein: The True Story (1973) Can Hieronymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness? (1969) True Grit (1969) | |
Song Titles | Making Our Dreams Come True (Laverne and Shirley) (performing artist: Laverne and Shirley) True Blue (performing artist: Madonna) Girl You Know It's True (performing artist: Milli Vanilli) Losing True (performing artist: The Roches) Never Had A Dream Come True (performing artist: S Club 7) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
References | |||
Books |
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Periodicals | |||
Theater & Movies |
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Music |
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High Tech |
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Consumer Goods | |||
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | Pseudohyphae and true hyphae. Credit: CDC. |  | The phrase "big fish eat little fish" may hold true when it comes to planets and stars. ... Credit: NASA. |
 | The saying "X" marks the spot holds true in this Hubble telescope image. In this case, X ... Credit: NASA. |  | True color image of faint blue galaxies. Credit: NASA. |
 | This image is true stereo from GOES-East and GOES-West satellites. Use red/green stereo glasses with the red lens on the right eye. The date/time for this image was 15 Sepember 1988 16:18:55 UTC. Credit: NASA. |  | Using a magnetometer to measure the declination Declination is the angle between true north and magnetic north. Credit: Coast & Geodetic Survey Historical Image Collection. |
 | Plate 2. The Pygmy Sperm Whale. Kogia Goodei, True. The Blackfish. Globiocephalus melas (Traill.). Credit: National Marine Fisheries Historical Image Collection. |  | Figure 72. Pycnometers for the measurement of the density of sediments. According to Thoulet, the apparent density of a sediment is the weight per cm cubed of the dry sediment when compressed as much as possible. The true densit y is the relation of the weight of the sample relative to the weight of an equal volume of distilled water at 4C. Thoulet studied these sediment properties. Credit: Sailing for Science - the NOAA Fleet Then and Now. |
 | Quoth Hal to Dick, I know its true... / [John Collier]. Credit: National Library of Medicine. |  | Behold ye Worldings whence true pleasure springs; / [John Collier]. Credit: National Library of Medicine. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
 |  |
| "May our wishes come true" by Michelle Ho Commentary: "A wish tree at the Bottle Temple, Thailand." | "True Story Number One" by Kelly Abbott Commentary: "They don't sell Nikes." |
Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers. | |
| Author | Quotation |
Charles Haddon Spurgeon | Giving is true having. |
Cicero | True glory lies in noble deeds. |
Confucius | True gold fears not the fire. |
Henry Ward Beecher | True obedience is true freedom. |
Napoleon Bonaparte | A true man hates no one. |
Ralph Waldo Emerson | The true poem is the poet's mind. |
Seneca | What is true belongs to me! |
Thomas Fuller | Virtue is the only true nobility. |
Thomas Middleton | As true as I live. |
William Blake | Opposition is true friendship. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | |
| Author | Date | Quotation |
John Locke | 1690 | He alone, it is true, is judge of the right. (Second Treatise of Government) |
Marbury v. Madison | 1803 | This is true, yet the jurisdiction must be appellate, not original. (reference) |
Communist Manifesto | 1848 | Thus, to the German philosophers of the eighteenth century, the demands of the first French Revolution were nothing more than the demands of "Practical Reason" in general, and the utterance of the will of the revolutionary French bourgeoisie signified in their eyes the law of pure Will, of Will as it was bound to be, of true human Will generally. (reference) |
Treaty of Versailles | 1919 | The boundaries of East Prussia, with the reservations made in Section IX (East Prussia) of Part III, will be determined as follows: from a point on the coast of the Baltic Sea about 1 1/2 kilometres north of Probbernau church in a direction of about 159° East from true North: a line to be fixed on the ground for about 2 kilometres; thence in a straight line to the light at the bend of the Elbing Channel in approximately latitude 54° 19 1/2' North, longitude 19° 26' East of Greenwich; thence to the easternmost mouth of the Nogat River at a bearing of approximately 209° East from true North; thence up the course of the Nogat River to the point where the latter leaves the Vistula (Weichsel);thence up the principal channel of navigation of the Vistula, then the southern boundary of the Kreis of Marienwerder, then that of the Kreis of Rosenberg eastwards to the point where it meets the old boundary of East Prussia, thence the old boundary between East and West Prussia, then the boundary between the Kreise of Osterode and Neidenburg, then the course of the river Skottau downstream, then the course of the Neide upstream to a point situated about 5 kilometres west of Bialutten being the nearest point to the old frontier of Russia; thence in an easterly direction to a point immediately south of the intersection of the road Neidenburg-Mlava with the old frontier of Russia: a line to be fixed on the ground passing north of Bialutten; thence the old frontier of Russia to a point east of Schmalleningken, then the principal channel of navigation of the Niemen (Memel) downstream, then the Skierwieth arm of the delta to the Kurisches Haff; thence a straight line to the point where the eastern shore of the Kurische Nehrung meets the administrative boundary about 4 kilometres south-west of Nidden; thence this administrative boundary to the western shore of the Kurische Nehrung. (reference) |
Winston S. Churchill | 1946 | Police governments are prevailing in nearly every case, and so far, except in Czechoslovakia, there is no true democracy. ("Iron Curtain" Speech) |
Brown v. Board of Education | 1954 | It is true that public school education at the time of the Amendment had advanced further in the North, but the effect of the Amendment on Northern States was generally ignored in the congressional debates. (reference) |
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. | 1963 | And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. (Delivered on the steps at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. on August 28, 1893) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Title | Author | Quote |
Emma | Austen, Jane | If it be not inconvenient to you, pray let us go in, that I may prove myself to belong to the place, to be a true citizen of Highbury |
Sylvie and Bruno | Carroll, Lewis | That, I believe, is the true Scientic Method |
Scarlet Letter | Hawthorne, Nathaniel | It may be true, that, to a sensitive observer, there was something exquisitely painful in it. |
Les Miserables | Hugo, Victor | was there no one there who saw it and can tell you that this is true! I perhaps did wrong to get angry |
Trainspotting | Irvine Welsh | less likely to get hurt by our cruel world, when obviously the reverse is true. |
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man | Joyce, James | Was it true about the black dog that walked there at night with eyes as big as carriagelamps |
King Richard III | Shakespeare, William | So deal with him as I prove true to you. |
Gulliver's Travels | Swift, Jonathan | But, if what I told him were true, he was still at a loss how a kingdom could run out of its estate like a private person |
Walden | Thoreau, Henry David | Yet till this is otherwise we are not civilized, and, if gentlemen and ladies, are not true men and women |
The Tempest | William Shakespeare | Antonio: True; save means to live |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Health | The true incidence of PPH is unknown. (references) | |
This is no less true when they have cancer. (references) | ||
The same may be true of other drugs now being developed. (references) | ||
Business | This is often true for two reasons. (references) | |
This is also true in Argentina, where the U.S. is a key player. (references) | ||
This holds true for both RECs and the general domestic population. (references) | ||
Children | Guyana | There are no law enforcement investigative procedures in place to determine if abuse or parental incapacity were the true causes of death in some cases of the 400 children under the age of 5 who die each year, deaths that usually are ascribed to malnutrition or disease. (references) |
Civil Liberties | Iran | Sufi brotherhoods are popular, but there are no reliable figures available to judge their true size. (references) |
Mexico | On August 3, a judge acquitted two persons accused in the 1998 murder of foreign journalist Philip True. (references) | |
Economic History | Botswana | Botswana is a true African success story. (references) |
Bangladesh | The same holds true for computer hardware and software. (references) | |
Azerbaijan | True IPR enforcement remains a long-term prospect in Azerbaijan. (references) | |
Human Rights | Gabon | Media reports suggested that this was true; however, little information about such prosecutions or their results was available. (references) |
Russia | Authorities asserted that Robinson distorted the true nature of the state of affairs and that Russia never hid the truth about the situation in Chechnya. (references) | |
India | Human rights groups allege that this particularly is true in the case of security force encounters with non-Kashmiri militants who cross into Jammu and Kashmir illegally. (references) | |
Indigenous People | Namibia | This has been especially true in the Khoe San and Mafwe communities in the Caprivi and in the Herero community. (references) |
Australia | Aboriginal and Torres Straits Islander Commission (ATSIC) Chairman Geoff Clark asserted that the council should strive for a true reconciliation guaranteed by both formal recognition of indigenous rights and a treaty. (references) | |
Minorities | Moldova | The priest of the first True Orthodox-Moldova Church reportedly has been harassed and threatened. (references) |
Political Economy | Kuwait | The Government maintains that many bidoon are concealing their true nationality. (references) |
PAKISTAN | Many observers believe this survey understates the true dimensions of the problem. (references) | |
Korea | This is true even when crop production is relatively good, as it was during the year. (references) | |
Trade | Singapore | Pictorial illustrations must not mislead about the true nature or origin of the food. (references) |
Honduras | The name, which is normally specific and not generic, must indicate the true nature of the product. (references) | |
Vietnam | Project Financing: To date there has not been one true limited-recourse financed project in Vietnam. (references) | |
Travel | Italy | The same is true during the Christmas and New Year period. (references) |
Korea | This is doubly true during Lunar New Year and Chusok because of the holiday season. (references) | |
Cote D'ivoire | The general rule is that if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is, and even a simple reply might cause future problems. (references) | |
Women | Russia | No reliable statistics exist to evaluate the true extent of the problem nationwide, and individual jurisdictions vary in their statistical methodology. (references) |
United Kingdom | The study estimated the true number of rapes and assaults at between 118,000 and 295,000. The study was released as part of a package of government grants and projects aimed at improving the conviction rate for rape and providing women with better protection against domestic violence. (references) | |
Worker Rights | India | Most transactions are carried out with the complicity of family member or neighbor, and at times the parents who know the true intent but feign ignorance. (references) |
Lexicography | Devil's Dictionary | CALLOUS, adj. Gifted with great fortitude to bear the evils afflicting another. When Zeno was told that one of his enemies was no more he was observed to be deeply moved. "What!" said one of his disciples, "you weep at the death of an enemy?" "Ah, 'tis true," replied the great Stoic; "but you should see me smile at the death of a friend." |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| Speaker | Phrase(s) |
Dennis Miller | True confidence must come from the inside. |
Gennifer Flowers | Networks, newspapers that have said very ugly things, and made huge assumptions and reported things that weren't true. And I appreciate that. |
Jack Lemmon | It's true. And there's nothing worse than waiting and timing and you wait and it looks like a bad cut on the film because the laugh has stopped and you're waiting. You can't do it. |
Jermaine Jackson | True, but still. Look at his heart. Look at his music. Look at what he's done for people. Look at the influence. We've been influenced. And you have to say, he's a wonderful person. |
Naomi Campbell | Liquor. That just makes me feel everything but my real self. It makes me not give my true emotions, so. |
Robert Novak | Mr. Minister, the mayor of Jerusalem, Mr. Olmert, was quoted this week as saying that Yasser Arafat lusts for Jewish blood. If that's true, it's very difficult to have any kind of negotiations with him. |
Rush Limbaugh | That is true even if one assumes the absurd, which was that the nuclear deal was a stand-alone and not linked to the arms and oil deals or to a broader strategic relationship. |
Sela Ward | That's true and you really can't go home in the same way. The place is not the same. It's changed. You've changed. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Speaker | Term | Phrase(s) |
George Washington | 1789-1797 | Respect for its authority, compliance with its laws, acquiescence in its measures, are duties enjoined by the fundamental maxims of true liberty. |
John Adams | 1797-1801 | On the contrary, to extend and invigorate them is our true policy. |
Abraham Lincoln | 1861-1865 | A majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations, and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people. |
Harry S. Truman | 1945-1953 | That is true in Europe, in Asia, in Africa, as well as in the Western Hemisphere. |
Dwight Eisenhower | 1953-1961 | May the turbulence of our age yield to a true time of peace, when men and nations shall share a life that honors the dignity of each, the brotherhood of all. |
Lyndon B. Johnson | 1963-1969 | Two centuries of change have made this true again. |
Jimmy Carter | 1977-1981 | To be true to ourselves, we must be true to others. |
Ronald Reagan | 1981-1989 | What is true for families in America is true for America in the family of free nations. |
Bill Clinton | 1993-2001 | But in this digital economy, it is not true anymore. |
George W. Bush | 2001-2005 | Our discoveries in Afghanistan confirmed our worst fears, and showed us the true scope of the task ahead. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| "True" is generally used as an adjective (general or positive) -- approximately 99.31% of the time. "True" is used about 17,353 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Adjective (general or positive) | 99.31% | 17,234 | 542 |
| Lexical Verb (base form) | 0.6% | 104 | 31,955 |
| Adverb (general) | 0.08% | 14 | 93,893 |
| Total | 100.00% | 17,353 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| The following table summarizes the usage of "true" based on a population census conducted in the United States. Ranks and frequencies are based on all names reported and classified. |
| Name | Usage/Gender | Usage per 100 million Persons | Rank in USA |
| True | Last name | 3,000 | 3,521 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits. | |||
| The following table summarizes names derived from the word "true". | |||
| Name | Gender | Language | Meaning |
| Amittai | N/A | Biblical | True |
| Amnon | N/A | Biblical | Faithful and true |
| Amon | N/A | Biblical | True |
| Memucan | N/A | Biblical | True |
| Ammon | N/A | Egyptian Mythology (Hellenized) | True |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references.
| |||
| Country | Name |
| USA | True North Communications, Inc. |
| (more examples...) |
Source: compiled by the editor from Icon Group International, Inc.
1. True, WV |
Expressions using "true": a true believer ♦ A true bill ♦ appreciate smth. for its true value ♦ as true as i live! ♦ as true as i stand here! ♦ as true as steel ♦ be true ♦ be true to one's promise ♦ certified true copy ♦ come true ♦ Danton True Young ♦ empirically true ♦ find a true bill ♦ form a true notion of smth. ♦ get out of true ♦ have a true realization of ♦ hide one's true feelings ♦ hold smth. to be true ♦ hold true ♦ in its true colors ♦ it is true in the rough ♦ it is true within limits ♦ it must be true ♦ it proved to be true ♦ it's true that ♦ make come true ♦ make true ♦ not true ♦ of the true faith ♦ out of true ♦ prove true ♦ right and true ♦ rigorously true ♦ ring true ♦ show one's true colors ♦ show one's true colours ♦ show one's true face ♦ show oneself in one's true colors ♦ speak true ♦ still it is true ♦ that is true ♦ the Mysticete or whalebone whales having no true teeth after birth but with a series of plates of whalebone see Baleen hanging down from the upper jaw on each side thus making a strainer through which they receive the small animals upon which they feed ♦ the opposite is true ♦ the true ♦ the true is quite otherwise ♦ the X that can be Y is not the true X ♦ 'tis too true ♦ To come true ♦ tried and true ♦ true airspeed ♦ true airspeed indicator ♦ true altitude ♦ true anomaly ♦ True as touch ♦ true bacteria ♦ true BASIC ♦ true bearing ♦ true bias ♦ true bill ♦ true blackberry ♦ True blue ♦ true born ♦ true Briton ♦ true bug ♦ true by definition ♦ true cat ♦ true cedar ♦ true class limits ♦ true color ♦ true colour ♦ true convergence ♦ true copy ♦ true course ♦ true crocodiles ♦ true declination ♦ true deer ♦ true description ♦ true dip ♦ True discount ♦ true dwarf ♦ true earth radius ♦ true enough! ♦ true faith ♦ true fir ♦ true flycatcher ♦ true flycatchers ♦ true friend ♦ true frog ♦ true fungus ♦ true glottis ♦ true guava ♦ true hacker ♦ true heading ♦ true heath ♦ true height ♦ true hemp ♦ true horizon ♦ true interest cost ♦ true jasmine ♦ true laurel ♦ true lifetime. Additional references. | |
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "true": true-and-fair, true-blooded, true-blue, true-born, true-bred, True-brit, true-false, true-grit, true-hacker, true-hearted, true-heartedness, true-human, true-kin, true-life, true-light, true-love, true-lover's knot, true-penny, true-seeming, true-self, true-that, true-to-life, true-to-scale, True-type, true-value, true-zero. | |
Ending with "true": almost-too-good-to-be-true, dream-come-true, ever-true, far-too-good-to-be-true, oh-so-true, out-of-true, stay-true. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day | Expression | Frequency per Day |
true love | 1,496 | scary story true | 126 |
true voyeur | 1,426 | true crime story | 125 |
true value | 689 | rachel true | 124 |
true crime | 589 | true north | 120 |
true | 577 | true blue | 119 |
true value hardware | 498 | fantasy live online true | 116 |
true ghost story | 453 | e hollywood true story | 112 |
true type font | 331 | true poker | 103 |
true story | 284 | true romance | 102 |
true sex story | 265 | dream come true | 96 |
true lie | 236 | true grit | 95 |
true crime street of la | 230 | true friend | 90 |
true colors | 211 | true confession | 85 |
true treadmill | 193 | acronis true image | 84 |
true temper | 177 | never had a dream come true | 84 |
true sleeper | 173 | one true voice | 81 |
true credit | 159 | image true | 80 |
true love wait | 156 | true type | 76 |
free true type font | 147 | true erotic story | 75 |
strange but true | 127 | true value hardware store | 75 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Language | Translations for "true"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Afrikaans | werklik (absolutely, genuinely, genuinly, indeed, really, truly), waar (where), reg (correct, exact, jurisprudence, law, proper, right). (various references) | |
Albanian | real (absolute, actual, concrete, effective, flesh and blood, hard, historic, historical, objective, real, realistic, substantial, veritable), i vërtetë (actual, authentic, bona fide, downright, effective, faithful, flesh and blood, genuine, objective, perfect, positive, practical, proper, pucka, real, right, substantial, truthful, uncoined, unfailing, unfeigned, veracious, veritable, virtual), i sinqertë (candid, devout, earnest, explicit, Frank, free, free-hearted, free-spoken, genuine, honest, ingenuous, onefold, open, outgiving, outspoken, plain spoken, sincere, single minded, single-eyed, single-hearted, Square, transparent, true-hearted, truthful, unaffected, unreserved, whole-souled), i saktë (accurate, clean-cut, clear-cut, close, correct, definite, exact, explicit, express, just, literal, neat, painstaking, Pat, pithy, precise, pronounced, pure, right, strict, stringent, unexceptional, veracious), i ligjshëm (forensic, judicial, lawful, legal), i drejtë (candid, correct, direct, disinterested, downright, equitable, erect, even, fair, impartial, just, kosher, lank, regular, right, Square, stand up, straight, straightaway, upright, upstanding, virtuous, white), besnik (clean, devout, faithful, loyal, true blue, true born). (various references) | |
Arabic | طبق الأصل (characteristic, faithful), بصدق (genuinely, glimpse of hope, truly, whole heartedly), دقيق (accurate, careful, close, delicate, elaborate, exact, express, farina, fine, flour, inappreciable, infinitesimal, intangible, just, keen, mathematical, meal, nearness, nice, painstaking, particular, pernickety, precise, punctilious, punctual, rigorous, scrupulous, searching, sharp, sound, specific, straightforward, strict, ticklish, tiny, touchy, tricky, veracious), شرعي (de jure, judicial, judiciary, lawful, legal, legitimate, prima facie, rightful, valid), أصلي (authentic, bona fide, ethnic, ethnical, fundamental, genetic, genetical, original, overriding, premier, prime, primordial, pristine, proper, pukka, radical), خلص (clear, cleave, keep faith, manumit, mop up, redeem, relieve, rescue), بدقة (accurately, carefully, circumstantially, fussily, minutely, narrowly, on time, painstakingly, precisely, strictly), صحيح (accurate, alright, aright, be in the right, consonantal, correct, entire, exact, faithful, hale, honest, indeed, ortho, plumb, precise, proper, pure, real, reasonable, regular, right, seemly, sincere, unbroken, valid, veracious, veritable, whole), كان طبق الأصل, حقيقي (actual, authentic, effective, essential, factual, genuine, intrinsic, intrinsical, positive, proper, real, realistic, right, substantial, substantive, tangible, veritable, very), واقعي (actual, concrete, de facto, down to earth, factual, hard, hardheaded, literal, naturalistic, pragmatic, pragmatist, prose, real, realistic, sober, tangible, virtual), وفي (adherent, constant, faithful, firm, kosher, loyal, righteous, staunch, true-hearted, truthful, unswerving), مخلص (adherent, candid, constant, devoted, devout, earnest, faithful, heartfelt, hearty, honest, loyal, mentor, open-hearted, sincere, staunch, steadfast, true-hearted, truthful, whole-hearted), موثوق (authoritative, credible, dependable, reliable, safe, sound, steady, straight, sure, trustworthy, trusty), من غير تغير, صادق (befriend, bona fide, chum, endorse, friend, genuine, honest, indorse, plain spoken, real, sanction, sincere, truthful, unaffected, unfeigned, veracious, whole-hearted). (various references) | |
Blackfoot | niitsii (to be true). (various references) | |
Breton | gwir. (various references) | |
Bulgarian | наистина (actually, all right, for real, forsooth, in all verity, in sooth, indeed, real, really, sure, sure enough, surely, truly, verily, yea), изправям (detect, erect, peak, planish, put up, raise, rectify, remedy, repair, right, righten, set right, stand up, straighten, uncurl, unkink), истински (actual, authentic, authentically, bona fide, factual, for real, genuine, genuinely, good, honest, mere, natural, par excellence, positive, precious, proper, pucka, pukka, pure, real, regular, regularly, right, right-down, sheer, simon-pure, thorough, thoroughgoing, thorough-paced, true blue, true born, truly, truthful, unadulterated, unfeigned, veridical, veritable, very, virtual), поправям (adjust, alter, amend, blue pencil, castigate, cobble, correct, do up, doctor, emend, fix, fix up, mend, polish, recast, recondition, rectify, redeem, redress, remedy, renovate, repair, retouch, retrieve, revamp, revise, service, vamp), правилен (accurate, correct, good, just, normal, okay, proper, regular, right, straight), правилно (aright, correctly, exactly, hear! hear, just so, justly, okay, properly, regularly, right, rightly, that's right, true enough), предан (affectionate, devoted, faithful, intent, liege, loyal, single-hearted, whole-hearted), действителен (actual, concrete, effective, factual, objective, operative, real, sound, valid, virtual), акордиран, центриран, оправям (adjust, disembroil, disentangle, do a room, heal, make, patch, planish, pull round, pull through, put in order, put right, readjust, right, righten, set right, sleave, straighten, tide, unbend, unkink, unravel, wipe up), верен (accurate, correct, faithful, just, liege, loving, loyal, natural, okay, right, staunch, steady, sure, true-hearted, truthful, unfailing, veracious), вярно (aright, faithfully, sic, surely, truly, truthfully, yea), точен (accurate, careful, correct, exact, express, faithful, just, literal, minute, narrow, near, perfect, pinpoint, precise, precision, proper, punctual, refined, right, rigorous, scientific, sensitive, straight, strict, unerring, veracious, well-directed), точно (according to cocker, clean, correctly, directly, exactly, expressly, just, justly, narrowly, nicely, on schedule, precise, prompt, right, sharp, spang, strictly, textually, truly, whang), точно поставен, лоялен (loyal, stanch, staunch, straight, true-hearted, well-affected). (various references) | |
Chinese | 誠 (honest, sincere), 真正 (genuine, real), 真实 (truthful), 真實 (real), 真 (genuine, real), 確有其事 (authentic), 確實 (indeed, real, really, reliable), 確 (authenticated, firm, real, solid), 篤 (serious, sincere), 屬實 (turn out to be true, verified), 信 (evidence, letter, sign, to believe), 實 (honest, real, really, solid). (various references) | |
Czech | vìrný (close, constant, devoted, faithful, lifelike, life-like, loyal, staunch, true blue, trustworthy, trusty, truthful, unfailing), upřímný (candid, direct, fair dealing, feeling, Frank, free-hearted, genuine, heartfelt, heart-to-heart, heart-whole, honest, ingenuous, on the up and up, open, open-hearted, outspoken, plain, plainspoken, simple, sincere, single-hearted, straight, straightforward, transparent, true-hearted, unaffected, unreserved), skuteèný (actual, effective, existent, existing, genuine, great, historical, intrinsic, intrinsical, practical, real, very, virtual), pravdivý (just, straightforward, truthful), pravý (authentic, direct, genuine, good, proper, real, right, straight, true born, truthful, unadulterated, unfeigned, veritable, very), přesný (accurate, clean-cut, clear-cut, correct, definite, exact, faithful, just, literal, nice, precise, punctual, right, specific, strict, subtle, truthful), oprávnìný (authorized, competent, eligible, just, justified, warrantable, with justification), èistý (absolute, blank, clean, clear, fine, neat, net, new, perfect, pure, stainless, straight, taintless, tidy, unalloyed, untainted, white). (various references) | |
Danish | sand (sand), ægte (authentic, genuine). (various references) | |
Dutch | waar (authentic, commodity, deserving, genuine, merchandise, wares, where, worthy), juist (accurate, correct, exact, exactly, just, just now, okay, precise, proper, right, sharp, striking), gegrond (right). (various references) | |
Esperanto | prava (right). (various references) | |
Faeroese | sannur (above-board, sincere). (various references) | |
Farsi | فریور (Orthodox), پابرجا (Firm, Immutable, Indefeasible, Resolute, Stable), واقعی (Actual, Essential, Genuine, Lifelike, Literal, Real, Right, Sterling, Unfeigned, Veracious, Veritable, Very, Virtual), حقیقی (Actual, Genuine, Intrinsic, Real, Rightful, Unfeigned, Veracious), صحیح (Authentic, Correct, Exact, Good, Integral, Right, Safe, Valid), ثابت (Equable, Firm, Immobile, Immovable, Indelible, Irremovable, Loyal, Pat, Permanent, Resolute, Stable, Staid, Standstill, Steady), راستین (Real), راستگو (Sooth, Veracious), راست (Bolt, Erect, Prick, Right, Sheer, Straight, Straightforward, Upright, Wooden), درست (Accurate, Authentic, Conscionable, Correct, Entire, Even, Exact, Genuine, Integral, Just, Legitimate, Orthodox, Outandout, Perfect, Plumb, Right, Smackdab, Sock, Sound, Straight, Straightforward, Trustworthy, Upright, Valid, Veracious, Whole). (various references) | |
Finnish | tosi (truth, veritable). (various references) | |
French | vrai (truthful), véritable, réel. (various references) | |
German | wahr (genuine, intrinsic, rank, real, truthful, veritable), echt (authentic, bona fide, fast, genuine, genuinely, legit, natural, positively, proper, properly, pukka, real, really, sincere, thorough, truthful, typical, unaffected, unfeigned, veritable), treu (abidingly, dedicated, devoted, devotedly, faithful, faithfully, innocent, loyal, loyally, respectful, stalwart, staunch, staunchly, truly, trusting, trustingly, trusty, unfailing), richtig (accurate, affirmative, aright, correct, correctly, duly, exact, fit, justly, proper, properly, quite, real, really, regular, right, rightly, thoroughly, unmitigated, unmitigatedly), zutreffend (accurate, applicable, appropriate, concurrently, correct, exact, operative, proper, right), wahrhaftig (absolutely, actually, egad, genuinely, honest, indeed, really, truly, truthful, truthfully), wahrhaft (real, really, truly, truthful, veracious, veraciously, veritable). (various references) | |
Greek | βέροσ (genuine, native born, true blue), πιστόσ (believer, constant, credible, faithful, loyal, stanch, staunch, true blue, trusty), ακριβήσ (accurate, correct, exact, just, precise, punctual, strict, thoro, thorough), αληθήσ (genuine, truthful, veritable, very), αληθής (actual). (various references) | |
Haitian Creole | vre. (various references) | |
Hebrew | להתאים בדיוק (fill the bill), אמתי (actual, genuine, real, sincere, truthful), נאמן (adherent, faithful, firm, henchman, loyal, loyalist, reliable, stanch, staunch, trustworthy, trusty, unfailing), נכון (clear, correct, exact, just, o.k., prepared, proper, ready, right, sound). (various references) | |
Hungarian | igaz (fast, just, plumb, proper, sincere, sound, to prove a good friend, veridical), való (balinese, burgundian, essence). (various references) | |
Icelandic | sannur. (various references) | |
Indonesian | sejati (genuine, real), hakiki (intrinsic), betul (correct, exact, fine, really, right), benar (right, sincere, valid). (various references) | |
Irish | fíor-shuim (true interest). (various references) | |
Italian | vero (actual, genuine, legit, perfect, real, sheer, truthful, unfeigned, veracious, veritable, very, virtual). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 真 (due east, genuine, pref just, pure, right). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | トゥルー , しんの (genuine, real, utter), しんせい (a new government or administration, application, authentic, dignity, direct Imperial rule, disposition, divinity, genuine, holiness, inborn nature, mind, nascent, nature, new birth, new face, new system, nova, petition, pure, rebirth, request, sacredness, theocracy), しんこ (pickled vegetables, pickles, real), ま (demon, devil, due, evil spirit evil influence, genuine, just, pause, pure, right, room, space, time), せい (cause, companion, control, energy, establishment, family name, fault, gender, government, height, holding back, imperial command, laws, -made, make, military strength, organization, reason, regular, regulation, restraint, sex, spirit, stature, suppression, surname, system, threaten), じっせい (actual, real), じゅんすい (genuine, pure, pure water, unmixed), ちゅうなる (devoted, faithful, loyal). (various references) | |
Korean | 여실한. (various references) | |
Manx | rieugh (actual, material, real), kiartaghey (accommodate, accommodate arrange, adjust, adjusting, amend, correct, correct as mistake, correction, even out, fix, make, modification, modify, preparation, prepare, qualify, ready, rectification, redress, setting, settle, settling), jeeragh (candid, direct; erect, downright, due, fair and square, faithful; just, forthcoming, frank, honest, lineal; sincere, outright, outspoken, partly done, plumb, point-blank, rigid, straight, straight ahead, straightforward, strict, undeviating, unequivocal, unerring), firrinagh (authentic, candid, devout, faithful, honest, real, sincere, sterling, unaffected, veracious), feer (authentic, correct, exceptionally, extremely, pure, real, regular, sheer, sincere, truthful, veritable, very), dy jeeragh (candidly, directly, exactly, forthright, honestly, immediately, justly, precisely), dy firrinagh (candidly, really, truly, verily), dy feer (bona fide, exceedingly, really, sincerely, truly). (various references) | |
Norwegian | sann. (various references) | |
Papiamen | rason (right). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | uetray.(various references) | |
Polish | realizować się (come true). (various references) | |
Portuguese | verdadeiro (actual, breathing, natural, practical, pucka, pukka, real, rightful, sincere, truthful, unfeigned, veracious, veritable, very), verídico (just, truthful, veracious, veridical). (various references) | |
Portuguese Brazilian | certo. (various references) | |
Quechua | riki (that's true). (various references) | |
Romanian | exact (accurate, accurately, by the square, careful, clean-cut, clipping, clockwork, correct, dead, directly, due, even, exact, exactly, faithful, fitting, flat, for all the world, formal, just, just so, narrow, perfect, precise, precisely, proper, punctual, punctually, regular, right, rigorous, scholarly, sharp, slick, straight, strict, strictly, that's the idea, to a day, to a hair's breadth, truly, you've hit it), adevårat (actual, practical, real), aievea (actual, actually, real, really), autentic (authentic, certified, exemplified, genuine, patent, right, very), bun (affectionate, applicable, belongings, beneficial, benevolent, bonny, bright, canny, capital, clever, decent, domain, eminent, fair, favorable, favourable, fine, fit, fitting, fond, fortunate, fortune, genuine, good, goods, grand, grandfather, grandparent, happy, honest, humane, kind, kindly, nice, okay, pleasurable, proper, real, right, salutary, skilful, skillful, soft-hearted, splendid, suitable, upright, useful, virtuous, well, wholesome), cinstit (above board, candid, chaste, clean-fingered, correctly, fair, foursquare, gentlemanlike, guileless, honest, honestly, honest-minded, honorable, honourable, mensurable, on the level, on the up and up, open, reliable, reputable, respectable, righteous, scrupulous, simple, sincere, sincerely, sporting, sportsmanlike, Square, straightforward, trustful, truthful, unfeigned, upright, venerable, virtuous), cordial (cordial, cordially, genial, good humoured, good-humored, heart-felt, hearty, kind, responsive, sincere, stimulating, warm, whole heartedly, whole-hearted), adevãrat (actual, correct, forsooth, genuine, honestly, in truth, indeed, positive, positively, proper, quite right, real, really and truly, regular, sheer, sooth, Square, stark, truthful, veraciously, veritable, very), drept (as, attribution, claim, correct, Dexter, direct, directly, due, end on, endways, equitable, erect, even, evenly, exactly, fair, fairly, for, forthright, honest, just, justice, justly, kind, law, legitimate, patent, permission, plain, point blank, precisely, privilege, real, reasonable, right, right foot, right leg, righteous, Square, stand, stand up, straight, straightforward, truly, truthful, unprejudiced, upright), veritabil (authentic, genuine, real, regular, right, sheer, staunch, sterling, unadulterated, veritable), fidel (as true as steel, constant, devoted, faithful, faithfully, honest, precise, sincere), leal, loial (fair, faithful, faithfully, honest, Leal, loyal, sincere, staunch, straight), original (air hole, archetype, authentic, creative, eccentric, first hand, genuine, odd, original, originally, peculiar, queer, real, unique), real (actual, effective, effectual, factual, live, natural, proper, real, sheer, sooth, substantial, tangible, truthful, very), sincer (above board, artless, authentic, blunt, candid, candidly, childlike, devout, downright, fair, forthright, Frank, frankly, freehearted, free-spoken, genuine, guileless, heartfelt, heart-whole, hearty, honest, honestly, ingenuous, kind, open, open-hearted, outright, outspoken, overt, plain, plainly, right-down, round, sincere, single, straight, straightforward, truly, truthful, undisguised, unfeigned, unpretending, unreserved, well-meant), credincios (as true as steel, believer, believing, devoted, devout, faithful, honest, Leal, loyal, loyally, never failing, reliable, staunch, true blue, trusty, unfailing, unswerving). (various references) | |
Russian | верный (anchored, devoted, faithful, faithfull, loyal, right, sure-fire, tried, trusty, truthful, unerring, unfailing), верно истиный истинность, законный (judicial, juridical, justifiable, lawful, legal, legitimate, licit, recognized, rightful, vested, warrantable), правильный (accurate, correct, exact, just, orderly, proper, regular, right, right-on, simple, valid, well-becoming, well-formed), подлинный (authentic, genuine, original, simon-pure, uncoined, veritable), истый, истинный (genuine, proper, unfeigned, veritable). (various references) | |
Scottish | fìor (genuine, pure : fìoruisge, pure spring water). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | vrlo (badly, extremely, intensely, jolly, most, passing, right, strongly, uncommonly, very, whopping, wide), veran (faithful, liege, loyal, staunch, true blue, true-hearted), sušti (pure, rank), pravi (genuine, ortho-, plumb, proper, pucka, pukka, real, sheer, simon-pure, stark, sterling, thorough), odan (addicted, addictive, affectionate, clinging, committed, dedicated, devoted, faithful, liege, loyal, staunch, whole-hearted), istinski (authentic, bona fide, pucka, pukka, real, simon-pure, sterling), istinit (accurate, authentic, believable, veracious, veridical, veritable). (various references) | |
Spanish | verdadero (actual, crowned, effective, factual, incorrupt, legitimate, perfect, positive, proper, real, regular, right, rightful, sheer, sterling, trueborn, unerring, upstanding, veritable). (various references) | |
Sranan | tru. (various references) | |
Swedish | sann (genuine, real, sincere, truthful), trogen (devoted, faitful, faithful, liege, loyal, stalwart, true blue, trusty), riktig (apposite, appropriate, correct, fair, just, out and out, perfect, plentiful, positive, proper, pucka, pukka, right, righteous, sound, thorough), äkta (arrant, authentic, espouse, genuine, inartificial, kosher, legit, real, regular, right-down, true blue, veritable). (various references) | |
Tagalog | totoó. (various references) | |
Turkish | tam olarak (accurately, completely, evenly, every bit, exactly, fairly, flat, fully, implicitly, in depth, in full, Plumb, positively, quite, right, rightdown, rootedly, roundly, slap bang, smack, straight, strictly, to a t), tam (absolute, accomplished, according to cocker, accurate, all out, at the time, bang, bang on, blank, clear, complete, consummate, correct, dead, desperately, downright, due, engrained, entire, even, exact, exactly, factual, full, full complement, fully, holo-, implicit, ingrained, intact, integral, intimate, just, literal, mathematical, on time, out and out, outright, overall, perfect, plenary, Plumb, plunk, precise, precisely, prize, prompt, proper, punctual, rank, right, rightdown, root and branch, round, sharp, sheer, simple, slap bang, slick, solid, spot-on, Square, stark, straight, strict, the very, thorough, thoroughgoing, to a t, trueborn, unalloyed, unambiguous, unmitigated, unredeemed, unreserved, utter, very, whole), sahi (actually, really), safkan (blooded, clean-bred, pedigree, pedigreed, pure, pure blooded, pureblooded, purebred, thoroughbred), sadık kalarak, içten (bluff, bona fide, candid, childlike, cordial, deep, deeply, devout, earnest, faithful, familiar, forthright, genuine, gut, hail-fellow-well-met, heartfelt, heart-to-heart, heart-whole, hearty, honest, honest-to-god, honest-to-goodness, ingenuous, internally, inwardly, kindly, open, open armed, openhearted, open-hearted, sincere, sincerely, true-hearted, truly, truthful, unaffected, undesigning, unfeigned, whole-hearted), hakiki (bona fide, dinkum, dyed in the wool, genuine, pucka, pukka, real, rightful, sterling, straight out, veritable), gerçekten (actually, by my troth, for real, forsooth, genuinely, honest, honest injun, honestly, in fact, in point of fact, in sooth, in troth, in very deed, indeed, it's no joke, of a verity, quite, real, really, regularly, sure enough, truly, yea, yes indeed), gerçek (actual, actualities, authentic, bona fide, dinkum, earnest, exact, fact, factual, for real, genuine, honest-to-god, honest-to-goodness, intrinsic, literal, low down, lowdown, proper, pucka, pukka, real, reality, right, rightful, sincere, sooth, sterling, straight out, substantial, tangible, the real, the true, troth, truth, truthful, unfeigned, veracious, veracity, veritable, Verity, very, virtual), esaslı (bedrock, constitutional, essential), doğru (above board, according to cocker, according to hoyle, accurate, aright, authentic, cheese, correct, direct, due, exact, exactly, fair, fair enough, faithful, for, guileless, honest, honest injun, just, on time, ortho-, orthodox, precisely, prompt, proper, punctual, quite so, right, righteous, sincere, spot-on, Square, straight, straight as a die, straight line, the right, the thing, the truth, thro, through, thru, truthful, up to, upstanding), aslının aynı, asıl (actual, authentic, Cardinal, central, elementary, extraction, foundation, fountain-head, gist, groundwork, in chief, intrinsic, main, master, origin, original, origination, pivotal, principal, principally, provenance, real, root stock, virtual). (various references) | |
Turkmen | wepaly (honest), idili (good), dogry (exact, straight), dogrudan (really), зyn. (various references) | |
Ukrainian | істина (fact, sooth, troth, truth, Verity), справжній (active, actual, authentic, factual, genuine, honest, intrinsic, intrinsical, natural, operative, original, practical, pukka, real, sheer, simon-pure, sincere, true born, unadulterated, undoubted, unfeigned, veridic, veridical, veritable, very), точно (accurately, cold, dead, definitely, due, exactly, explicitly, fair, faithfully, flush, just, microscopically, minutely, precisely, prompt, punctually, sharp, to a turn, truly), вірно (aright, correctly, faithfully, fast, justly), вірний (blue, certain, correct, devoted, faithful, loyal, positive, staunch, sure, trusty), відданий (attached, devoted, doglike, loving, true blue, true-hearted), законний (allowable, juristic, juristical, justiciary, lawful, legal, legitimate, licit, nomothetic, recognized, rightful, vested), правильний (accurate, correct, normal, orderly, proper, pure, regular, right, straight, truthful, unerring, well formed), правда (sooth, truth, veracity), правдиво (honestly, truly). (various references) | |
Vietnamese | thật (actual, genuine, really, regular, sterling, substantial, truly), thực đúng, thực (dinkum, net, really, sure-enough, truthful, veritable, very), xác thực chân chính thành khẩn, chính xác đúng chỗ, chân thành trung thành đúng, đúng (actually, apt, aptly, aright, correct, due, exact, fair, fitting, just, precise, precisely, proper, properly, right, rightly, very). (various references) | |
Welsh | gwir (actual, authentic, truth). (various references) | |
Yucatec | haah. (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
| Language | Period | Translations |
| Latin | 500 BCE-Modern | verus. (various references) |
| Avestan | 200-600 | eresh. (various references) |
| Old French | 900-1400 | franc. (various references) |
| Middle English | 1100-1500 | verray. (various references) |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Language | Date | Source | Matthew Chapter 12, Verse 17 |
| Greek (transliterated) | 250 BC | Septuagint | OpwV plhrwqh to rhqen dia hsaiou tou profhtou legontoV |
| Latin | 405 | Vulgate | Ut adimpleretur quod dictum est per Esaiam prophetam dicentem |
| Middle English | 1395 | Wyclif | That that thing were fulfillid, that was seid by Isaie, the prophete, seiynge, Lo! |
| Renaissance English | 1526 | Tyndale | To fulfyll that which was spoden by Esay ye Prophet which sayeth. |
| Jacobean English | 1611 | King James | That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, |
| Victorian English | 1833 | Webster | That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying, |
| Basic English | 1964 | Ogden | So that what was said by Isaiah the prophet might come true, |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Language | Matthew Chapter 12, Verse 17 |
| Cebuano | Kini tuman sa gisulti pinaagi sa profeta nga si Isaias, nga nag-ingon: |
| Croatian | da se ispuni što je reèeno po Izaiji proroku: |
| Danish | for at det skulde opfyldes, som er talt ved Profeten Esajas, som siger: |
| Dutch | Opdat vervuld zou worden, hetgeen gesproken is door Jesaja, den profeet, zeggende: |
| Finnish | että kävisi toteen, mikä on puhuttu profeetta Esaiaan kautta, joka sanoo: |
| French | afin que s`accomplît ce qui avait été annoncé par Ésaïe, le prophète: |
| German | auf das erfüllet würde, was gesagt ist von dem Propheten Jesaja, der da spricht: |
| Indonesian-Bahasa Sehari-hari | Dengan demikian terjadilah apa yang dikatakan Allah melalui Nabi Yesaya, |
| Indonesian-Terjemahan Lama | Supaya sampailah sabda Nabi Yesaya, bunyinya: |
| Korean | 이 는 선 지 자 이 사 야 로 말 씀 하 신 바 |
| Latvian | Lai izpildîtos pravieða Isaja vârdi, kas saka: |
| Manx Gaelic | As shoh myr va cooilleenit shen ny loayr Esaias y phadeyr, gra, |
| Maori | Na ka rite ta Ihaia poropiti i korero ai, i mea ai, |
| Norwegian | forat det skulde opfylles som er talt ved profeten Esaias, som sier: |
| Portuguese | para que se cumprisse o que foi dito pelo profeta Isaías: |
| Rumanian | ca sq se kmplineascq ce fusese vestit prin proorocul Isaia, care zice: |
| Shuar | Yaunchu Yúsnan etserin Isayas Tímia nu uminkiati tusa Túrunamiayi. Niisha juna aarmiayi: |
| Spanish | para que se cumpliese lo dicho por medio del profeta Isaías, que dijo: |
| Swahili | ili yale aliyosema nabii Isaya yatimie: |
| Swedish | Ty det skulle fullbordas, som var sagt genom profeten Esaias, när han sade: |
| Uma | Jadi', madupa' -mi Lolita Alata'ala to napohowa' nabi Yesaya owi. Hewa toi moni-na: |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "true": trueblue, trueblues, trueborn, truebred, trued, truehearted, trueheartedness, trueheartednesses, trueing, truelove, trueloves, trueness, truenesses, truepennies, truepenny, truer, trues, truest. (additional references) | |
Words ending with "true": construe, misconstrue, untrue. (additional references) | |
Words containing "true": construed, construes, misconstrued, misconstrues, untruer, untruest. (additional references) | |
| |
"True" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: frue, Iturbe, strue, taui, teue, teur, thrue, thue, Tjuo, tlui, torgue, torue, trae, trafe, traqe, traxe, treb, treee, treef, trefe, treh, treq, trere, treu, treue, treuk, Treut, trev, trewe, trex, treze, trfue, trhe, trief, trieg, triek, triuwe, trke, trobe, troe, trof, trofe, trole, trou, trouge, trouve, trouw, trox, troye, trpe, tru, Truax, trub, trube, truc, trud, trude, trues, truex, truey, Truf, trufe, truge, truid, truk, trum, trumeau, trun, trune, trup, trur, trus, truse, trute, Trutex, truv, truve, truw, trux, truz, trye, tsui, tuer, tuey, tuoe, tuqe, tura, turc, turd, turde, ture, turee, turey, turfe, turi, turl, turo, turq, turr, turse, turte, turu, tuve, Tzuke. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "true" (pronounced truw") |
| 3 | t r uw" | construe, misconstrue, strew, untrue. |
| 2 | -r uw" | accrue, brew, crew, drew, grew, outgrew, overthrew, rue, screw, threw, through, thru, withdrew. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "e-r-t-u" | |
-1 letter: ret, rue, rut. | |
-2 letters: er, et, re, ut. | |
| Words containing the letters "e-r-t-u" | |
+1 letter: brute, buret, cruet, curet, cuter, eruct, erupt, muter, outer, outre, rebut, recut, route, truce, trued, truer, trues, tuber, tuner, tuyer, urate, uteri, utter, vertu. | |
+2 letters: acuter, arbute, aurate, auteur, brunet, bruted, brutes, bunter, burets, burnet, buster, butler, butter, couter, cruets, cruset, curate, curets, curite, curter, curvet, cutler, cutter, detour, duster, eructs, erupts, estrum, estrus, fluter, future, gurnet, gutter, hunter, hurter, hurtle, iterum, juster, luster, lustre, mature, muster, mutter, nature, neuter, nutter, ouster, outers, pouter, precut, punter, purest, putter, quarte, quatre, quoter, rebuts, rectum, rectus, recuts, redout, refute, reluct, repute, result, retune, return, retuse, roquet, roupet, routed, router, routes, rudest, rugate, runlet, russet, rusted, rustle, rutile, rutted, souter, stoure, suiter, surest, surety, sutler, suture, tauter, tenour, tenure, tergum, torque, toured, tourer, touter, triune, troupe, truced, truces, trudge, truest, truffe, tubber, tubers, tucker, tufter, tugger, tuners, tureen, turfed, turkey, turned, turner, turret, turtle, turves, tusker, tusser, tuyere, tuyers, ulster, uniter, unrent, unrest, untrue, uprate, uptear, uptore, urates, ureter, uretic, urgent, urtext, uterus, utters, vertus, virtue, wuther. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Slideshow 7. Images: Photo Album 8. Images: Digital Art | 9. Quotations: Familiar 10. Quotations: Historic 11. Quotations: Fiction 12. Quotations: Non-fiction | 13. Quotations: Spoken 14. Quotations: Speeches 15. Usage Frequency 16. Names: Frequency | 17. Names: Derived from 18. Names: Company Usage 19. Cities 20. Expressions | 21. Expressions: Internet 22. Translations: Modern 23. Translations: Ancient 24. Bible Trace | 25. Derivations 26. Rhymes 27. Anagrams 28. Bibliography |
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