What does "truth" mean?

1. (the real facts) the real facts about a situation or event. 2. (quality of being true) the quality of being true, honest, or accurate. 3. (a proven principle) a fact or belief that is accepted as being true. 4. (truth or dare) the choice to answer a question honestly in the game 'truth or dare'. 5. (physics property) a special property of a tiny particle called a 'top quark'.

truth — meaning, definition & examples

Q: Is it correct to say "He didn't tell me the true."?

No — say "He didn't tell me the truth.". 'True' is an adjective; 'truth' is the noun you need after 'the'.

Word

01the real facts

B1 · Intermediate Uncountable noun

n. the real facts about a situation or event.

n. the body of real things, events, and facts; the actual state of a matter.

“It took a long time for the truth about the accident to come out.”

“The investigative journalist spent months cross-referencing documents to uncover the truth behind the government's involvement in the scandal.”

Synonyms

reality fact

Antonyms

lie falsehood

02quality of being true

B2 · Upper Intermediate Uncountable noun

n. the quality of being true, honest, or accurate.

n. the property or state of being in accordance with fact or reality.

“There is no truth in the rumours that the shop is closing.”

“The defence attorney questioned the truth of the witness's testimony, pointing out several logical inconsistencies in the timeline.”

Synonyms

accuracy veracity

Antonyms

dishonesty inaccuracy

03a proven principle

C1 · Advanced Countable noun Formal

n. a fact or belief that is accepted as being true.

n. a fundamental or spiritual reality; a statement or tenet accepted as true.

“The book explores the basic truths of human nature.”

“Philosophers have long debated whether moral truths are universal or merely products of specific cultural evolutions.”

Synonyms

axiom tenet principle

04truth or dare

B1 · Intermediate Uncountable noun Informal

n. the choice to answer a question honestly in the game 'truth or dare'.

n. the specific option in the game 'truth or dare' where the participant must answer a question truthfully.

“She chose truth and had to admit who her secret crush was.”

“After several rounds of increasingly difficult dares, he finally opted for truth, hoping for a less embarrassing turn.”

Antonyms

dare

05physics property

C2 · Proficiency Uncountable noun Science Technical

n. a special property of a tiny particle called a 'top quark'.

n. a quantum number of quarks and hadrons, also known as topness.

“In particle physics, truth is a property related to the top quark.”

“The researcher explained how the conservation of truth, or topness, is observed in high-energy particle collisions.”

Synonyms

topness

Common phrases and expressions where native English speakers use the word “truth” in context.

Verb

01. conceal truth

“He was accused of trying to conceal the truth from the police.”

verb + noun

02. reveal truth

“The investigation failed to reveal the truth behind the disappearance.”

verb + noun

03. seek truth

“Journalists must constantly seek truth in a world of misinformation.”

verb + noun

Adjective

04. absolute truth

“It is difficult to establish the absolute truth of his claims.”

adj + noun

05. objective truth

“Science seeks to uncover objective truth through experimentation.”

adj + noun

06. painful truth

“She finally had to face the painful truth about her career.”

adj + noun

Noun

07. element of truth

“His story contained an element of truth, though much was exaggerated.”

noun + prep + noun

08. grain of truth

“There is often a grain of truth in even the wildest rumors.”

noun + prep + noun

09. distort the truth

“The newspaper was accused of distorting the truth to sell more copies.”

10. moment of truth

“The moment of truth arrived when the exam results were posted.”

11. nothing could be further from the truth

“People say he is retiring, but nothing could be further from the truth.”

12. stretch the truth

“He tended to stretch the truth when talking about his military service.”

Uncountable when referring to the abstract concept or reality as a whole; countable when referring to specific facts or principles. Frequently preceded by the definite article 'the'.

He didn't tell me the true.

He didn't tell me the truth.

'True' is an adjective; 'truth' is the noun you need after 'the'.

“In the battle of Elon Musk v the press, we can’t let truth be the loser.”

The Guardian 1 Aug 2026

“What would it take to convince you that the era of truth decay we were long warned about—where AI content dupes us, shapes our beliefs even when we catch the lie, and erodes societal trust in the process—is now here?”

MIT Technology Review 2 Feb 2026

From Old English trēowþ and trīewþ, carrying senses of truth, faith, fidelity, loyalty, honour, and covenant. The word descended through Middle English as trouthe, truthe, trewthe, and treowthe before settling into modern form.

The Proto-Germanic ancestor triwwiþō meant promise, covenant, contract — a binding thing, rooted in the Proto-Indo-European drū- and deru-, tree and firmness. The semantic path runs from solid wood to solid word: a truth was something one could stand by, as one stands by a tree. The abstract suffix -th was added to true to form the noun, producing a doublet with troth, which kept the older spelling and the older sense of pledged faith.

Cognates survive in Norwegian trygd — trustworthiness, security, insurance — and Icelandic tryggð, meaning loyalty and fidelity. The insurance sense in Norwegian is a late development; the Old English and Proto-Germanic meanings were contractual, not commercial.

Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

fact reality

falsehood Lie fictionuntruth

NOUN

Truth(B1)

ADJECTIVE

truthful(B1)

honest know knowledge saying science true untrue