different between falsehood vs falsify

English

Etymology

From Middle English falshede, from false + -hede.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?f?ls?h?d/

Noun

falsehood (countable and uncountable, plural falsehoods)

1. (uncountable) The property of being false.
2. (countable) A false statement, especially an intentional one; a lie.

   Don't tell falsehoods.

3. (archaic, rare) Mendacity, deceitfulness; the trait of a person who is mendacious and deceitful.
   • 1984, Witness Lee, Life-Study: Revelation: Volume Three: Messages 34-50, Living Stream Ministry (1999), ?ISBN, page 511:

     The false prophet looks like a lamb, but speaks like a dragon. This indicates his falsehood. […] He will pretend to be the same as Christ.

Usage notes

• Falsehood, Falseness, Falsity; untruth, fabrication, fiction. Instances may be quoted in abundance from old authors to show that the first three words are often strictly synonymous; but the modern tendency has been decidedly in favor of separating them, falsehood standing for the concrete thing, an intentional lie; falseness, for the quality of being guiltily false or treacherous: as, he is justly despised for his falseness to his oath; and falsity, for the quality of being false without blame: as, the falsity of reasoning. — The Century Dictionary, 1911.

Quotations

• Syn. Falsehood, Falseness, Falsity; untruth, fabrication, fiction. Instances may be quoted in abundance from old authors to show that the first three words are often strictly synonymous; but the modern tendency has been decidedly in favor of separating them, falsehood standing for the concrete thing, an intentional lie; falseness, for the quality of being guiltily false or treacherous: as, he is justly despised for his falseness to his oath; and falsity, for the quality of being false without blame: as, the falsity of reasoning. — the Century Dictionary, 1911.
• Micah 2:11 (KJV):

  If a man walking in the spirit and falsehood do lie, saying, I will prophesy unto thee of wine and of strong drink; he shall even be the prophet of this people.

• 1909, John Potts, Secret Lodge System:

  The lodge upheld, sustained and honored this man in his double life, his deceit, his falsehood, his hypocrisy.

Synonyms

• (property of being false): falsity
• (intentionally false statement): lie
• (deceitfulness): falseness, mendacity
• See also Thesaurus:falsehood

Antonyms

• (false statement): truth, verity

Translations

English

Etymology

From French falsifier, from Late Latin falsific?re, present active infinitive of falsific? (“make false, corrupt, counterfeit, falsify”), from Latin falsificus, from falsus (“false”), corresponding to false +? -ify.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?f?ls?fa?/

Verb

falsify (third-person singular simple present falsifies, present participle falsifying, simple past and past participle falsified)

1. (transitive) To alter so as to make false; to make incorrect.

   • The Irish bards use to forge and falsify everything as they list, to please or displease any man.

2. (transitive) To misrepresent.
3. (transitive) To prove to be false.
   • 1730, Joseph Addison, The Evidences Of The Christian Religion

     Jews and Pagans united all their endeavors, under Julian the apostate, to baffle and falsify the prediction.

4. (transitive) To counterfeit; to forge.

5. (transitive, accounting) To show (an item of charge inserted in an account) to be wrong.
   • 1833, Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States

     It will allow the account to stand, with liberty to the plaintiff to surcharge and falsify it

   • 1912, Peyton Boyle, The Federal Reporter: Cases Argued and Determined in the Circuit District Courts of the United States

     The chancery rules governing proceedings to surcharge and falsify accounts are applicable only where an account has been stated between the parties, or where something equivalent thereto has been done.

6. (transitive, obsolete) To baffle or escape.
   • a. 1680, Samuel Butler, Fragments of an intended second part of the foregoing satire

     For disputants (as swordsmen use to fence / With blunted foyles) engage with blunted sense; / And as th' are wont to falsify a blow, / Use nothing else to pass upon a foe […]

7. (transitive, obsolete) To violate; to break by falsehood.

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

Further reading

• falsify in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• falsify in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.