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Definition: Untrue |
UntrueAdjective1. Not according with the facts; "unfortunately the statement was simply untrue"; "the facts as reported were wrong". 2. Not true to an obligation or trust; "is untrue to his highest opportunity and duty"-Bruno Laske. 3. Not accurately fitted; not level; "the frame was out of true"; "off-level floors and untrue doors and windows". 4. (used especially of persons) not dependable in devotion or affection; unfaithful; "a false friend; "when lovers prove untrue". Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "untrue" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1374. (references) |
(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: UntrueSynonyms: false (adj), out of true (adj), wrong (adj). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Deception | Untrue; mock, sham, make-believe, counterfeit, snide, pseudo, spurious, so-called, pretended, feigned, trumped up, bogus, scamped, fraudulent, tricky, factitious;bastard; surreptitious, illegitimate, contraband, adulterated, sophisticated; unsound, rotten at the core; colorable; disguised; meretricious, tinsel, pinchbeck, plated; catchpenny; Brummagem. |
Error | Adjective: erroneous, untrue, false, devoid of truth, fallacious, apocryphal, unreal, ungrounded, groundless; unsubstantial; heretical; (heterodox); unsound; illogical. |
Falsehood | Collusive, collusory; artful; (cunning); perfidious; spurious; (deceptive); untrue; falsified; Verb: covinous. |
Unbelief Doubt | Fallible; (uncertain); undemonstrable; controvertible; (untrue). |
Untruth | Invention, fabrication, fiction; fable, nursery tale; romance; (imagination); absurd story, untrue story, false story, trumped up story, trumped up statement; thing devised by the enemy; canard; shave, sell, hum, traveler;s tale, Canterbury tale, fairy tale, fake; claptrap. |
Adjective: untrue, false, phony, trumped up; void of foundation, without-foundation; fictive, far from the truth, false as dicer's oaths; unfounded, ben trovato, invented, fabulous, fabricated, forged; factitious, supposititious, surreptitious; elusory, illusory; ironical; soi-disant; (misnamed). | |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Untrue |
| English words defined with "untrue": calumniatory, calumnious, cook up ♦ defamatory, denigrating, denigrative, denigratory, deny, disconfirming ♦ fabricate, False return, falseness, falsity ♦ invalidating, invent ♦ libellous, libelous ♦ make up, manufacture, mendacious ♦ out of true ♦ slanderous ♦ untruly ♦ White lie. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "untrue": Concubine ♦ FOAF ♦ Indifference ♦ obtaining a false certificate by fraud ♦ story. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Lyrics | I'll never be untrue ("Let's Stay Together"; performing artist: Al Green) Of you thinkin' that I had been untrue (How Much I Feel; performing artist: Ambrosia) Everyone is so untrue (Honesty; performing artist: Billy Joel) We're always disturbed by George Bush's untrue words (Get High On Life; performing artist: Exit-13) Could make me untrue to my guy ("My Guy"; performing artist: Mary Wells) | |
Movie/TV Titles | Based on an Untrue Story (1993) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title |
Books | |
Theater & Movies | |
Music |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Author | Quotation |
Arthur Schopenhauer | The difficulty is to try and teach the multitude that something can be true and untrue at the same time. |
Plutarch | Also the two-edged tongue of mighty Zeno, who, say what one would, could argue it untrue. |
William James | We never fully grasp the import of any true statement until we have a clear notion of what the opposite untrue statement would be. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | |
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Health | Researchers have since discovered that all of these characteristics are untrue. (references) | |
Business | And finally, one cannot disparage the competition with untrue and damaging comments; even truthful criticism of competition may be illegal if there is no adequate justification for the extent of the criticism. (references) | |
Civil Liberties | Ukraine | Article 7 of the Civil Code allows anyone, including public officials, to sue for damages if circulated information is untrue or insults a person's honor or dignity. (references) |
Singapore | The group had not sought a permit, asserting that police had not responded to their previous efforts to obtain permits; the authorities stated that these assertions were untrue. (references) | |
Korea | Journalists allege that libel laws are used to harass publishers for articles that are unflattering but not necessarily untrue, and in the past some journalists have been arrested and jailed for libel. (references) | |
Human Rights | Equatorial Guinea | According to the Government, it investigated the allegation and determined that Milagrosa Obono Ndong's claims were untrue and politically motivated. (references) |
Lexicography | Devil's Dictionary | STORY, n. A narrative, commonly untrue. The truth of the stories here following has, however, not been successfully impeached. One evening Mr. Rudolph Block, of New York, found himself seated at dinner alongside Mr. Percival Pollard, the distinguished critic. "Mr. Pollard," said he, "my book, The Biography of a Dead Cow, is published anonymously, but you can hardly be ignorant of its authorship. Yet in reviewing it you speak of it as the work of the Idiot of the Century. Do you think that fair criticism?" "I am very sorry, sir," replied the critic, amiably, "but it did not occur to me that you really might not wish the public to know who wrote it." Mr. W.C. Morrow, who used to live in San Jose, California, was addicted to writing ghost stories which made the reader feel as if a stream of lizards, fresh from the ice, were streaking it up his back and hiding in his hair. San Jose was at that time believed to be haunted by the visible spirit of a noted bandit named Vasquez, who had been hanged there. The town was not very well lighted, and it is putting it mildly to say that San Jose was reluctant to be out o' nights. One particularly dark night two gentlemen were abroad in the loneliest spot within the city limits, talking loudly to keep up their courage, when they came upon Mr. J.J. Owen, a well-known journalist. "Why, Owen," said one, "what brings you here on such a night as this? You told me that this is one of Vasquez' favorite haunts! And you are a believer. Aren't you afraid to be out?" "My dear fellow," the journalist replied with a drear autumnal cadence in his speech, like the moan of a leaf-laden wind, "I am afraid to be in. I have one of Will Morrow's stories in my pocket and I don't dare to go where there is light enough to read it." Rear-Admiral Schley and Representative Charles F. Joy were standing near the Peace Monument, in Washington, discussing the question, Is success a failure? Mr. Joy suddenly broke off in the middle of an eloquent sentence, exclaiming: "Hello! I've heard that band before. Santlemann's, I think." "I don't hear any band," said Schley. "Come to think, I don't either," said Joy; "but I see General Miles coming down the avenue, and that pageant always affects me in the same way as a brass band. One has to scrutinize one's impressions pretty closely, or one will mistake their origin." While the Admiral was digesting this hasty meal of philosophy General Miles passed in review, a spectacle of impressive dignity. When the tail of the seeming procession had passed and the two observers had recovered from the transient blindness caused by its effulgence -- "He seems to be enjoying himself," said the Admiral. "There is nothing," assented Joy, thoughtfully, "that he enjoys one-half so well." The illustrious statesman, Champ Clark, once lived about a mile from the village of Jebigue, in Missouri. One day he rode into town on a favorite mule, and, hitching the beast on the sunny side of a street, in front of a saloon, he went inside in his character of teetotaler, to apprise the barkeeper that wine is a mocker. It was a dreadfully hot day. Pretty soon a neighbor came in and seeing Clark, said: "Champ, it is not right to leave that mule out there in the sun. He'll roast, sure! -- he was smoking as I passed him." "O, he's all right," said Clark, lightly; "he's an inveterate smoker." The neighbor took a lemonade, but shook his head and repeated that it was not right. He was a conspirator. There had been a fire the night before: a stable just around the corner had burned and a number of horses had put on their immortality, among them a young colt, which was roasted to a rich nut-brown. Some of the boys had turned Mr. Clark's mule loose and substituted the mortal part of the colt. Presently another man entered the saloon. "For mercy's sake!" he said, taking it with sugar, "do remove that mule, barkeeper: it smells." "Yes," interposed Clark, "that animal has the best nose in Missouri. But if he doesn't mind, you shouldn't." In the course of human events Mr. Clark went out, and there, apparently, lay the incinerated and shrunken remains of his charger. The boys idd not have any fun out of Mr. Clarke, who looked at the body and, with the non-committal expression to which he owes so much of his political preferment, went away. But walking home late that night he saw his mule standing silent and solemn by the wayside in the misty moonlight. Mentioning the name of Helen Blazes with uncommon emphasis, Mr. Clark took the back track as hard as ever he could hook it, and passed the night in town. General H.H. Wotherspoon, president of the Army War College, has a pet rib-nosed baboon, an animal of uncommon intelligence but imperfectly beautiful. Returning to his apartment one evening, the General was surprised and pained to find Adam (for so the creature is named, the general being a Darwinian) sitting up for him and wearing his master's best uniform coat, epaulettes and all. "You confounded remote ancestor!" thundered the great strategist, "what do you mean by being out of bed after naps? -- and with my coat on!" Adam rose and with a reproachful look got down on all fours in the manner of his kind and, scuffling across the room to a table, returned with a visiting-card: General Barry had called and, judging by an empty champagne bottle and several cigar-stumps, had been hospitably entertained while waiting. The general apologized to his faithful progenitor and retired. The next day he met General Barry, who said: "Spoon, old man, when leaving you last evening I forgot to ask you about those excellent cigars. Where did you get them?" General Wotherspoon did not deign to reply, but walked away. "Pardon me, please," said Barry, moving after him; "I was joking of course. Why, I knew it was not you before I had been in the room fifteen minutes." |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| Speaker | Term | Phrase(s) |
William H. Taft | 1909-1913 | I should be untrue to myself, to my promises, and to the declarations of the party platform upon which I was elected to office, if I did not make the maintenance and enforcement of those reforms a most important feature of my administration. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| "Untrue" is generally used as an adjective (general or positive) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "Untrue" is used about 287 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) | 100% | 287 | 17,188 |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "untrue": be untrue to smb. ♦ untrue statement ♦ untrue to type. Additional references. | |
| 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 |
untrue | 3 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "untrue"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Afrikaans | verkeerd (erroneous, false, mistaken, wrong). (various references) | |
Albanian | jo i vërtetë (mendacious, unreal), jo i përputhshëm, i pasaktë (erroneous, fallible, false, improper, inaccurate, incorrect, inexact, inexplicit, lax, vague), i gabuar (Amiss, erroneous, fallacious, false, faulty, ill-judged, improper, incorrect, mistaken, peccant, perverse, wet, wrong, wrongful), i gënjeshtërt (false, illusive, illusory, lying, mock, truthless), fals (affected, bogus, dummy, false, off-key, out of whole cloth, painted, plastic, snide, spurious). (various references) | |
Arabic | كاذب (bogus, deceptive, delusive, dummy, fake, false, fictitious, flash, lying, phony, pseudo, sham, simulate, snide, spurious, unreal, untruthful), غير وفي, غير صحيح (erroneous, improper, incorrect, indecorous, inexact, mistaken, unchecked, unsound, untruthful), غير دقيق (inaccurate, incorrect, inexact, loose, looseness, unfaithful), خائن (betrayer, deceiver, disloyal, faithless, false, perfidious, renegade, traitor, traitorous, treacherous, treasonable, unfaithful, unreliable). (various references) | |
Bulgarian | неточен (improper, inaccurate, incorrect, indefinite, inexact, lax, loose, unfaithful, wide, wrong), неверен (disloyal, faithless, false, false-hearted, inconstant, incorrect, mendacious, mock, perfidious, treacherous, unfaithful, wrongful), неправилен (abnormal, anomalous, awry, defective, erroneous, false, faulty, improper, incorrect, injudicious, irregular, lame, mis-, mistaken, unequal, unfair, vicious, wrongful), лъжлив (bogus, deceitful, deceptive, delusive, delusory, double, double-tongued, elusory, false, lying, mendacious, misleading, mock, perjurious, phantasmagoric, pretended, quack, shifty, spoof, tinsel, truthless, untruthful, vain), погрешен (awry, erroneous, false, faulty, illegitimate, improper, inaccurate, incorrect, mis-, misguided, mistaken, off beat, perverse, unsound, vicious, wonky, wrong, wrongful). (various references) | |
Chinese | 不真实 (untruthful), 不確實 . (various references) | |
Czech | nesprávný (false, faulty, improper, inaccurate, incorrect, out, wrong), nepravdivý (false, mendacious, untruthful), nepřesný (impressionistic, inaccurate, incorrect, inexact, looking forward, unfaithful, vague, woolly), lživý (mendacious, truthless, untruthful), klamný (deceptive, delusory, fallacious, false, illusive, illusory, misleading). (various references) | |
Danish | usand (false). (various references) | |
Dutch | onwaar (affected, false). (various references) | |
Esperanto | nevera (false), malvera (false). (various references) | |
Farsi | ناراستین , نادرست (Amiss, Dishonest, Erroneous, False, Foul, Imprecise, Impure, Inaccurate, Incorrect, Inexact, Jackleg, Sinister, Spurious, Unfair, Unsound, Vicious), غیرواقعی (Illusive, Illusory), خلاف واقع , خاءن (Renegade, Traitor, Traitorous, Treacherous), دروغ (Bung, Fable, False, Fiction, Lie), بیوفا (Jilt). (various references) | |
Finnish | uskoton (disloyal, false, unfaithful), valheellinen (false, not true), väärä (bent, crooked, false, faulty, incorrect, mis, twisted, unfair, wrong, wrongful). (various references) | |
French | infidèle (unfaithful, unreliable), inexact (unpunctual), incorrect, faux, erroné, déloyal (unfair, unfaithful). (various references) | |
German | unwahr (false, incorrect, untruely, untruthful), falsch (bogus, cattish, cattishly, counterfeit, deceitful, erroneous, fake, false, falsely, fictitious, forged, imitation, improper, incorrect, incorrectly, insincere, loaded, mistaken, nonfactual, off-key, phoney, phony, pseudo, put on, sham, spurious, unsounded, wrong, wrongly). (various references) | |
Greek | αναληθήσ (mendacious), αναληθής (false), ψεύτικος (false), ψευδής (false). (various references) | |
Hebrew | לא אמתי, לא אמן (disloyal, false), כוזב (false, fictitious, illusory, mimetic). (various references) | |
Hungarian | hamis (adulterous, bastard, bogus, counterfeit, deceitful, disingenuous, dud, dummy, factitious, false, frame-up, hollow, insincere, loaded, make-believe, mendacious, meretricious, mock, mockery, off-key, out of tune, phoney, phony, pseud, pseudo, sham, simulated, snide, spurious, supposititious, surreptitious, two faced, untruthful). (various references) | |
Icelandic | ósannur (false). (various references) | |
Indonesian | kebohongan (falsehood, lie, lying, untruth). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 虚偽 (falsehood, fiction, vanity). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | きょぎ (falsehood, fiction, vanity), ひが (erroneous, evil, he or she or they and I or we). (various references) | |
Korean | 허위. (various references) | |
Manx | mooadit (amplified, artificial, artificial untrue, augmented, enlarged, exaggerated). (various references) | |
Norwegian | usann (false). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | ueuntray.(various references) | |
Portuguese | não verdadeiro, mentiroso (dissembler, double-tongued, fabulist, liar, lying, made-up, mendacious, phoney, romancer, shammer, sklent, truthless), inexato (hit-and-miss, improper, inaccurate, incorrect, inexact, unfaithful, wrong), incorreto (hit-and-miss, impolite, improper, inaccurate, incorrect, inurbane, loose, rude, unbusinesslike, uncivil, wrong), gasto (consumption, cost, effete, exhausted, expenditure, expense, impoverished, jaded, offscourings, old, out, outgo, seedy, shabby, spent, threadbare, trite, waste, wear), falso (apocryphal, artificial, assumed, bastard, bogus, brummagem, buckram, cammed, canting, counterfeit, deceitful, double-dealing, double-faced, double-tongued, dummy, erroneous, faked, false, flash, hollow-hearted, imitation, insincere, lying, mendacious, mock, off-key, ostensible, painted, phoney, phony, pinchbeck, pretended, professed, self-styled, shifty, shoddy, simulated, sklent, slippery, slippy, snaky, snide, so-called, spurious, supposititious, traitorous, treacherous, truthless, two-faced, two-tongued, unfair, untrustworthy, wrong), errôneo (erroneous, wrong), contrário verdade. (various references) | |
Romanian | neadevãrat (false, incorrect, truthless), mincinos (inventor, liar, lying, mendacious, phony, story teller, tale teller, two faced, two-tongued), fals (apparent, artificial, bad, base, bogus, cant, colourable, counterfeit, deceitful, double dealing, dud, dummy, erroneous, erroneously, error, factitious, fake, false, falsehood, feigned, flash, forged, forgery, fraud, glossy, hollow, hollow-hearted, imitation, imposture, insincere, lying, mendacious, mistaken, mock, painted, phony, plugged, reprobate, sham, spurious, sugary, tinsel, treacherous, trumpery, truthless, two faced, unnatural, unnaturally, wrong, wrongfully). (various references) | |
Russian | несоответствующий (disharmonious, dissociable, inapplicable, inappropriate, inapt, irrelevant, unequal), неточный (hit-and-mis, hit-and-miss, imprecise, inaccurate, incorrect, inexact, lax, mis-stated), неверно неверный, неправильный (anomalous, defective, faulty, improper, inaccurate, incorrect, irregular, lame, no valid, off-beam, perverse, wrong, wrongful), ложный (erroneous, fallacious, false, lying, mendacious, phoney, phony, spurious, truthless, untruthful). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | neistinit (truthless, untruthful). (various references) | |
Spanish | infiel (disloyal, infidel, treacherous, unfaithful), impropio (Amiss, false, improper, inappropriate, incorrect, unbecoming, unfit, unseemly, wrong), imaginario (fancied, fanciful, imaginary, notional, unreal), ficticio (assumed, bogus, dummy, fictional, fictitious, made up, sham), falso (ambidexter, apostate, bad, bastard, blank, blind, bogus, brummagem, deceptive, dishonest, disingenuous, double-minded, dud, dummy, fake, false, hollow, incorrect, lost, lying, mendacious, phoney, phony, pinchbeck, pseudo, quack, sham, shifty, spurious, treacherous, two faced, two-tongued, unsounded, wrong), desleal (disloyal, faithless, false, infidel, unfair). (various references) | |
Swedish | osann (false, untruthful). (various references) | |
Turkish | uydurma (adjustment, apocryphal, arranging, cardboard box, coinage, colorable, concoction, fabled, fabrication, fabulous, fake, false, falsification, fib, fiction, fictitious, fictive, figment, fitting, flam, gold brick, improvisation, improvised, invention, made up, making up, mendacious, out of whole cloth, quack, tosh, trumped-up, tuning, untruth, untruthful), yanlış (Amiss, corrigendum, errant, erroneous, error, fallacy, false, fault, improper, inaccuracy, inaccurate, inadvisable, incorrect, inexact, lapse, mis-, miscue, mistake, mistaken, wrong, wrongly, wry), yalan (deceit, fabrication, falsehood, falseness, fib, flam, gammon, hollow, invention, lie, made up, mendacious, plumper, prevarication, quack, sham, shave, tale, taradiddle, tarradiddle, tell a lie, telltale, untruth, untruthful), vefasız (disloyal, errant, erring, inconstant, perfidious, unfaithful, untruthful), sahte (apocryphal, artificial, bad, base, bastard, bogus, colorable, counterfeit, double dealing, dud, Duff, dummy, factitious, fake, false, feigned, forged, fraudulent, hollow, imitated, make believe, mannered, mock, phoney, phony, pinchbeck, pious, pretended, pseudo-, put on, quack, queer, rose water, sham, shoddy, simulated, snide, spurious, studied, supposititious, telltale, token, unreal, untruthful), sadakâtsiz (disloyal, false-hearted, inconstant, insincere, perfidious, unfaithful), eğri (aslant, aslope, awry, bent, cambered, cockeyed, crooked, curve, graph, oblique, out of the straight, sinuous, skew, skewed, slanting, sloping, slouching, slouchy, tortuous, trajectory, warped, wry), asilsiz (false). (various references) | |
Turkmen | biwepa (faithless). (various references) | |
Ukrainian | нечесний (bad, bum, cammed, crooked, dishonest, sharking, shifty, sinister, snide, unfair), невірний (disloyal, unfaithful, unjust), неправильний (anomalous, awry, bad, barbarous, illegitimate, improper, incorrect, irregular, unequal, unfair, unlawful, wrong, wrongful). (various references) | |
Vietnamese | sai sự thật không chân th nh, sai (false, inaccurate, unjust, wrong, wrongly), không đúng (inaccurate, incorrect, inexact, out-of-truth, wrong, wrongly). (various references) | |
Welsh | anwir (false, lying, wicked). (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
| Language | Period | Translations |
| Latin | 500 BCE-Modern | infidelis. (various references) |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Language | Date | Source | Romans Chapter 7, Verse 3 |
| Greek (transliterated) | 250 BC | Septuagint | Ara oun zwntoV tou androV moicaliV crhmatisei ean genhtai andri eterw ean de apoqanh o anhr eleuqera estin apo tou nomou tou mh einai authn moicalida genomenhn andri eterw |
| Latin | 405 | Vulgate | Igitur vivente viro vocabitur adultera si fuerit cum alio viro si autem mortuus fuerit vir eius liberata est a lege ut non sit adultera si fuerit cum alio viro |
| Old English | 990 | West Saxon | Swa nu, gif heo treowe oðerne mann þonne hir wer lifeð, wearð heo æwbreca genemnod. Ac gif hir wer swelte, is heo of þære æ geæmetigd and nis heo na æwbreca, þeah þæt heo treoweð oðerne mann. |
| Middle English | 1395 | Wyclif | Therfor sche schal be clepid auoutresse, if sche be with another man, while the hosebonde lyueth; but if hir hosebonde is deed, sche is delyuered fro the lawe of the hosebonde, that sche be not auoutresse, if sche be with another man. |
| Renaissance English | 1526 | Tyndale | So then yf whill the man liveth she couple her selfe with another man she shalbe counted a wedlocke breaker. But yf the man be deed she is fre fro the lawe: so that she is no wedlocke breaker though she couple her selfe with another man. |
| Jacobean English | 1611 | King James | So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man. |
| Victorian English | 1833 | Webster | So then, if while her husband liveth, she is married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband is dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man. |
| Basic English | 1964 | Ogden | So if, while the husband is living, she is joined to another man, she will get the name of one who is untrue to her husband: but if the husband is dead, she is free from the law, so that she is not untrue, even if she takes another man. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Language | Romans Chapter 7, Verse 3 |
| Cebuano | Sumala niini, siya pagaisipon nga mananapaw kon makigpuyo siyag laing lalaki samtang buhi pa ang iyang bana. Apan kon mamatay ang iyang bana, mahigawas na siya sa maong kasugoan, ug kon mamana siyag lain dili siya mananapaw. |
| Croatian | Dakle: dok joj muž živi, zvat æe se, oèito, preljubnicom poðe li za drugoga. Ako li joj pak muž umre, slobodna je od zakona te nije preljubnica poðe li za drugoga. |
| Danish | Derfor skal hun kaldes en Horkvinde, om hun bliver en anden Mands, medens Manden lever: men når Manden dør, er hun fri fra den Lov, så at hun ikke er en Horkvinde, om hun bliver en anden Mands. |
| Dutch | Daarom dan, indien zij eens anderen mans wordt, terwijl de man leeft, zo zal zij een overspeelster genaamd worden; maar indien de man gestorven is, zo is zij vrij van de wet, alzo dat zij geen overspeelster is, als zij eens anderen mans wordt. |
| Finnish | Sentähden hän saa avionrikkojan nimen, jos miehensä eläessä antautuu toiselle miehelle; mutta jos mies kuolee, on hän vapaa siitä laista, niin ettei hän ole avionrikkoja, jos menee toiselle miehelle. |
| French | Si donc, du vivant de son mari, elle devient la femme d`un autre homme, elle sera appelée adultère; mais si le mari meurt, elle est affranchie de la loi, de sorte qu`elle n`est point adultère en devenant la femme d`un autre. |
| German | Wo sie nun eines andern Mannes wird, solange der Mann lebt, wird sie eine Ehebrecherin geheißen; so aber der Mann stirbt, ist sie frei vom Gesetz, daß sie nicht eine Ehebrecherin ist, wo sie eines andern Mannes wird. |
| Hungarian | Azért tehát az õ férjének életében paráznának mondatik, ha más férfihoz megy; ha azonban meghal a férje, szabaddá lesz a törvénytõl, úgy hogy nem lesz parázna, ha más férfihoz megy. |
| Indonesian-Bahasa Sehari-hari | Kalau wanita itu hidup dengan laki-laki yang lain pada waktu suaminya masih hidup, maka wanita itu dikatakan berzinah. Tetapi kalau suaminya meninggal, maka secara hukum, wanita itu sudah bebas. Dan kalau ia kawin lagi dengan seorang laki-laki yang lain, maka ia tidak berzinah. |
| Indonesian-Terjemahan Lama | Sebab itu, jikalau perempuan itu berlakikan orang lain tatkala suaminya lagi hidup, maka ia dikata orang perempuan berzinah; tetapi jikalau suaminya itu mati, terlepaslah perempuan itu daripada hukum itu, sehingga bukanlah ia perempuan berzinah, walaupun berlakikan orang lain. |
| Maori | Na, ki te riro ia i te tangata ke i tana tane e ora ana ano, ka kiia ia he wahine puremu: tena ka mate te tane, e atea ana a i te ture, ka kore ia e puremu ahakoa riro i te tangata ke. |
| Norwegian | Derfor skal hun kalles en horkvinne om hun, mens mannen lever, ekter en annen mann; men dersom mannen dør, er hun fri fra loven, så hun ikke blir en horkvinne om hun ekter en annen mann. |
| Portuguese | De sorte que, enquanto viver o marido, será chamado adúltera, se for de outro homem; mas, se ele morrer, ela está livre da lei, e assim não será adúltera se for de outro marido. |
| Rumanian | Dacq deci, cknd ki trqiewte bqrbatul, ea se mqritq dupq altul, se va chema preacurvq; dar dacq -i moare bqrbatul, este deslegatq de Lege, awa cq nu mai este preacurvq, dacq se mqritq dupq altul. |
| Russian | рПУЕНХ, ЕУМЙ ТЙ ЦЙЧПН НХЦЕ ЧЩК"ЕФ ЪБ "ТХЗПЗП, ОБЪЩЧБЕФУС ТЕМА'П"ЕК"ЕА; ЕУМЙ ЦЕ ХНТЕФ НХЦ, ПОБ УЧП'П"ОБ ПФ ЪБЛПОБ, Й ОЕ 'Х"ЕФ ТЕМА'П"ЕК"ЕА, ЧЩК"С ЪБ "ТХЗПЗП НХЦБ. |
| Shuar | Tuma asamtai aishri iwiaakain Chíkich aishmanjai Tsaníakka tsanirmawai. Tura ni aishri jakamtai Chíkich aishmanjai Páchitsuk nuatnakminiaiti tura nuikia tsanirmatsui. |
| Spanish | Por lo tanto, si ella se une con otro hombre mientras vive su esposo, será llamada adúltera. Pero si su esposo muere, ella es libre de la ley; y si se une con otro esposo, no es adúltera. |
| Swahili | Hivyo mwanamke huyo akiishi na mwanamume mwingine wakati mumewe yungali hai, ataitwa mzinzi; lakini mumewe akifa, mwanamke huyo yu huru kisheria, na akiolewa na mwanamume mwingine, yeye si mzinzi. |
| Swedish | Alltså, om hon giver sig åt en annan man, medan hennes man lever, så kallas hon äktenskapsbryterska; men om mannen dör, då är hon fri ifrån lagen, så att hon icke är äktenskapsbryterska, om hon giver sig åt en annan man. |
| Uma | Jadi', ane rapa' -na tobine toei mpotomane tomane ntani' -na bula tuwu' -pidi tomane-na to lomo' -na, mobualo' hanga' -na. Aga ane mpolia' mate-mi-hawo tomane-na, uma-ipi tehoo' hante atura toe. Nau' ncamoko-i hante tomane ntani' -na, uma-i-hawo rahanga' topobualo'. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "untrue": untruer, untruest. (additional references) | |
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"Untrue" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Duncrue, Duntree, Gunstrup, nuture, ulture, unattri, untra, untrus. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "untrue" (pronounced untruw") |
| 3 | -t r uw" | construe, misconstrue, strew, true. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "e-n-r-t-u-u" | |
-1 letter: tuner. | |
-2 letters: rent, rune, runt, tern, true, tune, turn. | |
-3 letters: ern, net, nut, ret, rue, run, rut, ten, tun, urn. | |
-4 letters: en, er, et, ne, nu, re, un, ut. | |
| Words containing the letters "e-n-r-t-u-u" | |
+1 letter: nurture, untruer. | |
+2 letters: juncture, nurtured, nurturer, nurtures, puncture, purulent, undercut, unrusted, untruest, unturned, upturned. | |
+3 letters: butternut, furniture, junctures, menstruum, nurturers, outburned, outnumber, punctured, punctures, ruthenium, strenuous, truculent, turbulent, unclutter, uncurrent, undercuts, unquieter, unrestful, unruliest, untenured, untrussed, untrusses, untutored, venturous, vulturine. | |
+4 letters: argumentum, butternuts, countersue, fraudulent, furnitures, inaugurate, juggernaut, menstruums, nunciature, nurturance, outnumbers, outrebound, puberulent, rutheniums, subroutine, surmounted, thunderous, tourniquet, truculence, truculency, tuberculin, turbulence, turbulency, turnbuckle, unbuttered, unclutters, uncultured, undercount, understudy, ungrateful, unneurotic, unrequited, unsaturate, untroubled. | |
| 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. Quotations: Familiar 7. Quotations: Non-fiction 8. Quotations: Speeches | 9. Usage Frequency 10. Expressions 11. Expressions: Internet 12. Translations: Modern | 13. Translations: Ancient 14. Bible Trace 15. Derivations 16. Rhymes | 17. Anagrams 18. Bibliography |
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