true
/tɹuː/ adjective, adverb, noun, verb, proper noun
Forms truer truest trues trueing truing trued tru troo tr00 trew
- adjective (of a statement) Conforming to the actual state of reality or fact; factually correct. “This is a true story.”
- adjective As an ellipsis of "(while) it is true (that)", used to start a sentence “True, I have only read part of the book, but I like it so far.”
- adjective Conforming to a rule or pattern; exact; accurate. “a true copy”
- adjective (logic) Of the state in Boolean logic that indicates an affirmative or positive result. “"A and B" is true if and only if "A" is true and "B" is true.”
- adjective Loyal, faithful. “He’s turned out to be a true friend.”
- adjective Genuine; legitimate; valid; sensu stricto. “The true king has returned!”
- adjective (biology) Used in the designation of group of species, or sometimes a single species, to indicate that it belongs to the clade its common name (which may be more broadly scoped in common speech) is restricted to in technical speech, or to distinguish it from a similar species, the latter of which may be called false. “true sparrows (Passer)”
- adjective (of an aim or missile in archery, shooting, golf, etc.) Accurate; following a path toward the target.
- adverb (of shooting, throwing etc) Accurately; in alignment. “This gun shoots true.”
- adverb (archaic) Truthfully.
- noun The state of being in alignment.
- noun (obsolete) Truth.
- verb To straighten (something that is supposed to be straight). “He trued the spokes of the bicycle wheel.”
- verb To make even, level, symmetrical, or accurate, align; adjust (often followed by up). “We spent all night truing up the report.”
- noun (obsolete) A pledge or truce.
- adjective (electronics) one of two states of a Boolean variable; logic 1.
- proper noun A surname.
- proper noun An unincorporated community in Summers County, West Virginia, United States.
- proper noun A town in Rusk County, Wisconsin, United States.
- proper noun A townland in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland.
Synonyms
factual real legitimate precise valid acceptable allowable legit leveful licit permissible rightful rulable bona fide actual authentic genuine lubish non-fake pukka true up dead on target truthful dependable honest reliable unfeigned lawful on-key straight
Antonyms
false untrue bastard counterfactual erroneous fallacious off counterfeit fictitious inaccurate incorrect invented
Etymology
From Middle English treowe, trew, trewe, triwe, true, trwe, from Old English trēowe, trīewe (“faithful, true”), from Proto-Germanic *triwwiz (“faithful, true”), from pre-Germanic *drewh₂yos, from Proto-Indo-European *drewH- (“firm, hard, true”).
Cognate with Saterland Frisian trjou (“honest”), Alemannic German trüüw (“loyal”), Dutch trouw (“loyal, true”), German treu (“loyal, true”), Luxembourgish trei (“loyal”), Danish tryg (“safe, secure”), Faroese and Icelandic tryggur (“faithful, loyal; safe”), Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish trygg (“safe, secure”), Gothic 𐍄𐍂𐌹𐌲𐌲𐍅𐍃 (triggws, “true; faithful, loyal”); also Irish dearbh (“sure”), Old Prussian druwis (“faith”), Ancient Greek δροόν (droón, “firm”)), extension of *dóru (“tree”) (possibly also Proto-Slavic *sъdorvъ (“healthy”) from the same root). More at tree. For the semantic development, compare Latin robustus (“tough”) from robur (“red oak”).
Variant of truce.
Webster’s 1913
- adjective Conformable to fact; in accordance with the actual state of things; correct; not false, erroneous, inaccurate, or the like; as, a true relation or narration; a true history; a declaration is true when it states the facts.
- adjective Right to precision; conformable to a rule or pattern; exact; accurate; as, a true copy; a true likeness of the original.
- adverb In accordance with truth; truly. Shak.
Etymology [OE. trewe, AS. treówe faithful, true, from treów fidelity, faith, troth; akin to OFries. triuwe, adj., treuwa, n., OS. triuwi, adj., trewa, n., D.trouw, adj. & n., G. treu, adj., treue, n., OHG. gitriuwi, adj., triuwa, n., Icel. tryggr, adj., Dan. tro, adj. & n., Sw. trogen, adj., tro, n., Goth. triggws, adj., triggwa, n., trauan to trust, OPruss druwis faith. Cf. Trow, Trust, Truth.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “true”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details