| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000. |
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| true |
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| PRONUNCIATION: |  tr |
| ADJECTIVE: | Inflected forms: tru·er, tru·est
1a. Consistent with fact or reality; not false or erroneous. See synonyms at real1. See Usage Note at fact. b. Truthful. 2. Real; genuine. See synonyms at authentic. 3. Reliable; accurate: a true prophecy. 4. Faithful, as to a friend, vow, or cause; loyal. See synonyms at faithful. 5. Sincerely felt or expressed; unfeigned: true grief. 6. Fundamental; essential: his true motive. 7. Rightful; legitimate: the true heir. 8. Exactly conforming to a rule, standard, or pattern: trying to sing true B. 9. Accurately shaped or fitted: a true wheel. 10. Accurately placed, delivered, or thrown. 11. Quick and exact in sensing and responding. 12. Determined with reference to the earth's axis, not the magnetic poles: true north. 13. Conforming to the definitive criteria of a natural group; typical: The horseshoe crab is not a true crab. 14. Narrowly particularized; highly specific: spoke of probity in the truest sense of the word. 15. Computer Science Indicating one of two possible values taken by a variable in Boolean logic or a binary device. | | ADVERB: | 1. In accord with reality, fact, or truthfulness. 2. Unswervingly; exactly: The archer aimed true. 3. So as to conform to a type, standard, or pattern. | | TRANSITIVE VERB: | Inflected forms: trued, tru·ing or true·ing, trues
To position (something) so as to make it balanced, level, or square: trued up the long planks. | | NOUN: | 1. Truth or reality. Used with the. 2. Proper alignment or adjustment: out of true. | | ETYMOLOGY: | Middle English trewe, from Old English tr owe, firm, trustworthy. See deru- in Appendix I. | | OTHER FORMS: | true ness —NOUN
| | WORD HISTORY: | The words true and tree are joined at the root, etymologically speaking. In Old English, the words looked and sounded much more alike than they do now: “tree” was trow and “true” was trowe. The first of these comes from the Germanic noun *trewam; the second, from the adjective *treuwaz. Both these Germanic words ultimately go back to an Indo-European root *deru– or *dreu–, appearing in derivatives referring to wood and, by extension, firmness. Truth may be thought of as something firm; so too can certain bonds between people, like trust, another derivative of the same root. A slightly different form of the root, *dru–, appears in the word druid, a type of ancient Celtic priest; his name is etymologically *dru-wid-, or “strong seer.”
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| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
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