verity

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English verite,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Anglo-Norman verité and Old French verité,^[5][6][7] from Latin vēritās (“truth, truthfulness”),^{[7][6][5][3][8]} from vērus (“true”),^[7][6][3] from Proto-Indo-European *were-o- (“true, trustworthy”).^[6] The Anglo-Norman word is recorded from 1113–19.^[9] Hoad notes that the French form with i replaced an older verté.^[10][11] The same Latin noun gave Italian verità, Spanish verdad and Portuguese verdade.^[7][12]

Earliest recorded meaning

Truth: Barnhart dates the word to about 1375,^[5] Dictionary.com to 1325–75,^[13] and Etymonline to the late 14th century.^[6] The MED has quotations from about 1390,^[2] and the OED, in an entry not fully revised, starts only in 1422, in Yonge's translation of the Secreta Secretorum.^[7]

Semantic evolution

Middle English already used the word for truth as an abstract quality, for the divine attribute of truth, for a tenet of the faith, and in the phrase in verite, truly.^[2] Truth could also be personified: an early 15th-century Castle of Love names Verite among the daughters of the high king, beside Mercy.^[2] The countable sense, a particular true statement or doctrine, is first recorded in the OED in 1533,^[7] and Hoad likewise dates "true statement or opinion" to the 16th century.^[10] From 1535 to 1770 the verity could mean the exact wording of the original Hebrew or Greek of the Bible.^[7][11] Johnson (1755) gave both "consonance to the reality of things" and "a true assertion; a true tenet",^[14] and quoted South for "eternal verity".^[14] The OED notes that the word was apparently not common in the 18th century but revived in the 19th,^[7] which also brought the rhetorical of a verity (1850, in Irving).^[7] Etymonline notes that modern French vérité was borrowed separately, by 1963 in cinéma vérité, and alone from 1966, for naturalism in film.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 1375 – truth.^[5] The MED's quotations begin about 1390, and the OED's in 1422.^[2][7]
• 1533 – a particular truth or true statement.^[7]
• 1535 – the exact text of the Hebrew or Greek Bible (obsolete after 1770); also a name for God or Christ.^[7]
• 1565 – truthfulness, sincerity.^[7]
• before 1634 – the actuality of something.^[7]
• 1850 – of a verity, truly, indeed.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. The quality of being true or real.^[3][4][15]
2. A true statement or principle, especially one of lasting importance: the old verities of village life.^{[3][4][15][11]}
3. Faithfulness to fact, or to artistic truth: the verity of the film's battle scenes.^[4]
4. in verity, of a verity: (archaic) truly, in fact.^[11][7]
5. (rare or obsolete) Truthfulness, sincerity.^[7][11]
6. (obsolete, 1535–1770) The exact wording of the original Hebrew or Greek text of the Bible.^[7][11]

Related words

• veritable
• very
• vérité
• verism

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
10. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
13. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
14. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
15. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins