true

• trew, trewe (obsolete)
• troo (nonstandard)
• tr00 (leetspeak)

From Middle English trewe, from Old English trīewe, (Mercian) trēowe (“trusty, faithful”), from Proto-Germanic *triwwiz (compare Saterland Frisian trjou (“honest”), Dutch getrouw and trouw, German treu, Norwegian and Swedish trygg (“safe, secure’”), from pre-Germanic *drewh₂yos, from Proto-Indo-European *drewh₂- (“steady, firm”) (compare Irish dearbh (“sure”), Old Prussian druwis (“faith”), Ancient Greek δροόν (droón, “firm”)), extension of *dóru (“tree”) (possibly also Proto-Slavic *sъdorvъ (“healthy”) from the same root). More at tree.

For the semantic development, compare Latin robustus (“tough”) from robur (“red oak”).

• enPR: trōō, IPA^(key): /tɹuː/, [t̠ɹ̠̊˔ʷu̠ː]

• Audio (UK)

  (file)

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• (archaic) IPA^(key): /tɹjuː/
• (now dialectal) IPA^(key): /tɹɪʊ̯/
• Rhymes: -uː

true (comparative truer or more true, superlative truest or most true)

1. (of a statement) Conforming to the actual state of reality or fact; factually correct.

   This is a true story.

   • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter VIII, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC, page 110:

     The humor of my proposition appealed more strongly to Miss Trevor than I had looked for, and from that time forward she became her old self again; […]. Now she had come to look upon the matter in its true proportions, and her anticipation of a possible chance of teaching him a lesson was a pleasure to behold.

   • 1963, Margery Allingham, “Eye Witness”, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC, page 249:

     The story struck the depressingly familiar note with which true stories ring in the tried ears of experienced policemen. No one queried it. It was in the classic pattern of human weakness, mean and embarrassing and sad.

   • 2013 July 20, “Old soldiers?”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8845:

     Whether modern, industrial man is less or more warlike than his hunter-gatherer ancestors is impossible to determine. […] One thing that is true, though, is that murder rates have fallen over the centuries, as policing has spread and the routine carrying of weapons has diminished. Modern society may not have done anything about war. But peace is a lot more peaceful.

   1. As an ellipsis of "(while) it is true (that)", used to start a sentence

      True, I have only read part of the book, but I like it so far.

2. Conforming to a rule or pattern; exact; accurate.

   a true copy;   a true likeness of the original

   • 1819 December 20 (indicated as 1820), Walter Scott, chapter XI, in Ivanhoe; a Romance. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co. […], →OCLC, page 229:

     […] making his eye, foot, and hand keep true time […]

3. (logic) Of the state in Boolean logic that indicates an affirmative or positive result.

   "A and B" is true if and only if "A" is true and "B" is true.

4. Loyal, faithful.

   He’s turned out to be a true friend.

5. Genuine; legitimate; valid; sensu stricto.

   The true king has returned!

   This is true Parmesan cheese — it is from the Parma region.

   • 1568, William Cornysh, “In the Fleete Made by Me William Cornishe [...]”, in John Skelton, edited by J[ohn] S[tow], Pithy Pleasaunt and Profitable Workes of Maister Skelton, Poete Laureate, Imprinted at London: In Fletestreate, neare vnto Saint Dunstones Churche by Thomas Marshe, →OCLC; republished as Pithy Pleasaunt and Profitable Workes of Maister Skelton, Poete Laureate to King Henry the VIIIth, London: Printed for C. Davis in Pater-noster Row, 1736, →OCLC, page 290:

     The Harpe. […] A harper with his wreſt maye tune the harpe wrong / Mys tunyng of an Inſtrument ſhal hurt a true ſonge

   • 2012 January, Henry Petroski, “The Washington Monument”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 1, page 16:

     The Washington Monument is often described as an obelisk, and sometimes even as a “true obelisk,” even though it is not. A true obelisk is a monolith, a pylon formed out of a single piece of stone.

   1. (biology) Used in the designation of group of species, or sometimes a single species, to indicate that it belongs to the clade its common name (which may be more broadly scoped in common speech) is restricted to in technical speech, or to distinguish it from a similar species, the latter of which may be called false.

      true sparrows (Passer)

      true spiders

      true blusher (Amanita rubescens, as distinguished from the false blusher, Amanita pantherina)

      The true bugs are those of the order Hemiptera; and, by some lights, most truly those of the suborder Heteroptera.

6. (of an aim or missile in archery, shooting, golf, etc.) Accurate; following a path toward the target.
   • 1801, Mrs. Cowley, “The siege of Acre”, in The British Critic, volumes 17-18, page 521:

     Whate'er the weapon, still his aim was true, Nor e'er in vain the fatal bullet flew.

   • 2008, Carl Hiaasen, The downhill lie: a hacker's return to a ruinous sport, page 188:

     I held my breath and struck the ball. My aim was true, but I didn't give the damn thing enough gas. It died three feet from the cup.

7. (of a mechanical part) Correctly aligned or calibrated, without deviation.

   Is my bike wheel true? It feels unsteady.

8. (chiefly probability) Fair, unbiased, not loaded.
   • 1990, William W. S. Wei, Time Series Analysis, →ISBN, page 8:

     Let ${\displaystyle Z_{t}}$ be twice the value of a true die shown on the ${\displaystyle t}$-th toss.

   • 2006, Judith A. Baer, Leslie Friedman Goldstein, The Constitutional and Legal Rights of Women: Cases in Law and Social Change, →ISBN:

     In fact, few profit margins can be predicted with such reliability as those provided by a true roulette wheel or other game of chance.

   • 2012, Peter Sprent, Applied Nonparametric Statistical Methods, Springer Science & Business Media, →ISBN, page 5:

     We do not reject, because 9 heads and 3 tails is in a set of reasonably likely results when we toss a true coin.

9. (of a literary genre) based on actual historical events.

   true crime

   true romance

   • 1965, James Holledge, What Makes a Call Girl?, London: Horwitz Publications, page 69:

     [A] skinny blonde of about twenty sitting in an armchair by an electric fire reading a true romance magazine.

• (antonym(s) of “of a statement, logic, loyal”): false; see also Thesaurus:untrue
• untrue

• truth

true (not comparable)

1. (of shooting, throwing etc) Accurately.

   This gun shoots true.

   • 2013 May-June, David Van Tassel, Lee DeHaan, “Wild Plants to the Rescue”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 3:

     Plant breeding is always a numbers game. […] The wild species we use are rich in genetic variation, and individual plants are highly heterozygous and do not breed true. In addition, we are looking for rare alleles, so the more plants we try, the better.

2. (archaic) Truthfully.
   • c. 1587–1588, [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire, London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act II, scene ii:

     I tel you true my hart is ſwolne with wrath,
     On this ſame theeuish villain Tamburlain.

true (countable and uncountable, plural trues)

1. (uncountable) The state of being in alignment.
   • 1904, Lester Gray French, Machinery, volume 10:

     Some toolmakers are very careless when drilling the first hole through work that is to be bored, claiming that if the drilled hole comes out of true somewhat it can be brought true with the boring tool.

   • 1922, F[rancis] Scott Fitzgerald, “(please specify the page)”, in Tales of the Jazz Age, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC:

     She clapped her hands happily, and he thought how pretty she was really, that is, the upper part of her face—from the bridge of the nose down she was somewhat out of true.

   • 1988, Lois McMaster Bujold, Falling Free, Baen Publishing,, →ISBN, page 96:

     The crate shifted on its pallet, out of sync now. As the lift withdrew, the crate skidded with it, dragged by friction and gravity, skewing farther and farther from true.

   • 1994, Bruce Palmer, How to Restore Your Harley-Davidson:

     The strength and number of blows depends on how far out of true the shafts are.

2. (uncountable, obsolete) Truth.
3. (countable, obsolete) A pledge or truce.

• in true
• out of true

true (third-person singular simple present trues, present participle trueing or truing, simple past and past participle trued)

1. To straighten (of something that is supposed to be straight).

   He trued the spokes of the bicycle wheel.

2. To make even, level, symmetrical, or accurate, align; adjust.

   We spent all night truing up the report.

• Often followed by up.

• true-up

• -uret, Treu, rute

From Old Norse þrúga, Proto-Germanic *þrūgōną, cognate with Swedish truga. The verb is related to Danish trykke and German drücken (“to press”) (= *þrukkijaną), but apparently not to German drohen (“threaten”) (= *þraujaną) or English threaten (= *þrautōną).

IPA^(key): /truːə/, [ˈtˢʁ̥uːu], [ˈtˢʁ̥oːo]

true (past tense truede, past participle truet)

1. to threaten

• “true” in Den Danske Ordbog
• “true” in Ordbog over det danske Sprog

true

1. Alternative form of trewe

From Old Norse þrúga.

true (imperative tru, present tense truer, passive trues, simple past and past participle trua or truet)

1. to threaten

• truende
• utrydningstruet

• trussel

• “true” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

• trua, truge

From Old Norse þrúga.

true (present tense truar, past tense trua, past participle trua, passive infinitive truast, present participle truande, imperative true/tru)

1. to threaten

• trussel

• “true” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.