FALSEHOOD • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Falsehood

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/fˈælshˌʊd/ Listen

noun

Falsehood n.

Want of truth or accuracy; an untrue assertion or representation; error; misrepresentation; falsity. "Though it be a lie in the clock, it is but a falsehood in the hand of the dial when pointing at a wrong hour, if rightly following the direction of the wheel which moveth it."

A deliberate intentional assertion of what is known to be untrue; a departure from moral integrity; a lie.

Treachery; deceit; perfidy; unfaithfulness. "Betrayed by falsehood of his guard."

A counterfeit; a false appearance; an imposture. "For his molten image is falsehood." "No falsehood can endure Touch of celestial temper."

Synonyms: Falsity; lie; untruth; fiction; fabrication. See Falsity.

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Etymology of 'Falsehood'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Falsehood" Quotes from Famous Books

... woman (listening intently for the sound of a step on the stairs) refused to submit to a shameful exposure, even now. To her perverted moral sense, any falsehood was acceptable, as a means of hiding herself from discovery by Iris. In the very face of detection, the skilled deceiver kept ...

— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins

... is self-destructive. The man who believes himself invulnerable will scarcely survive his first combat. A man's true ideas are the most he can hope, and all that he should wish, to carry with him to a life hereafter. Falsehood, sin, is the efficient agent of death. As Bishop Hall says: "There is a kind of not-being in sin; for sin is not an existence of somewhat that is, but a deficiency of that rectitude which should be; it is a privation, as blindness is a ...

— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton

... took two for one. I tried to explain, but he was in a passion, and gave me a blow. The lady said something to him about his improper conduct, and he said that I was such a careless little rascal, that he lost all patience with me. That hurt me a great deal more than the blow. It was a falsehood, and he knew it; but he wanted to excuse himself. I felt that I was going into a passion, too, but I thought of what you are always telling me about patience and forbearance, and I kept down my passion; ...

— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur

... it involved a falsehood. Egremont happened to regard her as she spoke, and at once a blush came to her cheeks. To what was she falling? Why did she tell untruths without the least need? She could not understand the motive which ...

— Thyrza • George Gissing

... thing of hollowness or insolidity in the result. Except in some of his earlier plays, written before he had found his proper strength, and before his genius had got fairly disciplined into power, there is nothing ambitious or obtrusive in his idealizing; no root of falsehood in the work, as indeed there never is in any work of art that is truly worthy the name. Works of artifice are a very different sort of thing. And one, perhaps the main, secret of Shakespeare's mode in this respect ...

— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson

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