true
Americanadjective
-
being in accordance with the actual state or conditions; conforming to reality or fact; not false.
a true story.
-
real; genuine; authentic.
true gold; true feelings.
-
sincere; not deceitful.
a true interest in someone's welfare.
- Synonyms:
- honest
-
firm in allegiance; loyal; faithful; steadfast.
a true friend.
- Synonyms:
- steady, constant, staunch, trustworthy
-
being or reflecting the essential or genuine character of something.
the true meaning of his statement.
-
conforming to or consistent with a standard, pattern, or the like.
a true copy.
-
exact; precise; accurate; correct.
a true balance.
- Synonyms:
- faithful
-
of the right kind; such as it should be; proper.
to arrange things in their true order.
-
properly so called; rightly answering to a description.
true statesmanship.
-
legitimate or rightful.
the true heir.
-
reliable, unfailing, or sure.
a true sign.
-
exactly or accurately shaped, formed, fitted, or placed, as a surface, instrument, or part of a mechanism.
-
honest; honorable; upright.
-
Biology. conforming to the type, norm, or standard of structure of a particular group; typical.
The lion is a true cat.
-
Animal Husbandry. purebred.
-
Navigation. (of a bearing, course, etc.) determined in relation to true north.
-
Archaic. truthful.
noun
-
exact or accurate formation, position, or adjustment.
to be out of true.
-
the true, something that is true; truth.
adverb
-
in a true manner; truly; truthfully.
-
exactly or accurately.
-
in conformity with the ancestral type.
to breed true.
verb (used with object)
-
trues,
present (3rd person singular)
-
trued,
past participle, past
-
trueing,
present participle
-
truing
present participle
-
to make true; shape, adjust, place, etc., exactly or accurately.
to true the wheels of a bicycle after striking a pothole.
-
(especially in carpentry) to make even, symmetrical, level, etc. (often followed byup ).
to true up the sides of a door.
idioms
adjective
-
not false, fictional, or illusory; factual or factually accurate; conforming with reality
-
(prenominal) being of real or natural origin; genuine; not synthetic
true leather
-
-
unswervingly faithful and loyal to friends, a cause, etc
a true follower
-
( as collective noun ; preceded by the )
the loyal and the true
-
-
faithful to a particular concept of truth, esp of religious truth
a true believer
-
conforming to a required standard, law, or pattern
a true aim
a true fit
-
exactly in tune
a true note
-
(of a compass bearing) according to the earth's geographical rather than magnetic poles
true north
-
biology conforming to the typical structure of a designated type
sphagnum moss is a true moss, Spanish moss is not
-
physics not apparent or relative; taking into account all complicating factors Compare apparent
the true expansion of a liquid takes into account the expansion of the container
-
informal unbelievable; remarkable
she's got so much money it's not true
-
exactly comparable with reality
noun
adverb
-
truthfully; rightly
-
precisely or unswervingly
he shot true
-
biology without variation from the ancestral type
to breed true
verb
Synonym Usage
See real 1.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
truesimple
-
truessimple
-
have truedperfect
-
has truedperfect
-
am trueingprogressive
-
am truingprogressive
-
are trueingprogressive
-
are truingprogressive
-
is trueingprogressive
-
is truingprogressive
-
have been trueingperfect progressive
-
have been truingperfect progressive
-
has been trueingperfect progressive
-
has been truingperfect progressive
Past
-
truedsimple
-
had truedperfect
-
was trueingprogressive
-
was truingprogressive
-
were trueingprogressive
-
were truingprogressive
-
had been trueingperfect progressive
-
had been truingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of true
before 900; Middle English trewe (adj. and adv.), Old English trēowe (adj.) loyal, trusty, honest ( trow, truce ); akin to Dutch trouw, German treu, Old Norse tryggr, Gothic triggws
Explanation
Things that are true are accurate, honest, and correct. There are many specific meanings, but when something is true, you can believe it. This word has many meanings, but they're all pretty much the opposite of false. True statements can be proven or verified — they aren't lies. To sing true is to sing on-key, and a true throw is on-target. The true king is the real king, not a fake. A true friend can be trusted. A true believer really believes in something, like a religion. And when you're true to yourself, you're being honest about what you want and feel.
Vocabulary lists containing true
"Encounter"
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You Are Correct! Synonyms for "Right"
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Christine McVie (1943–2022) Tribute List
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
"You cannot just pretend the technical concerns that are true are the same thing as the fearmongering," he said, adding that he was not arguing American companies should control everything.
From Barron's ● Sep. 2, 2026
The conspiratorial nature of true crime fanaticism is kept blessedly brief in the three-episode series.
From Salon ● Sep. 2, 2026
BOOTH: That’s primarily true for the U.S. market.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 2, 2026
"If the latter is true, it suggests it is important to continue developing drugs that target processes other than amyloid plaque accumulation. But we need more research on this," says Anders Martin Fjell.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 2, 2026
If what Lou says is true, they’ve been dead for over forty years.
From "Split the Sky" by Marie Arnold
“I think cats are like works of art that inspire you to be truer to yourself,” Meyer says.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 12, 2026
Jamil may be blunt, but her point is truer now than ever.
From Salon ● Aug. 5, 2026
It is a truer gauge of the sector versus a more widely cited ETF External link, which is heavily weighted toward Amazon.com External link and Tesla.
From Barron's ● May 15, 2026
How can we know that one thing is truer than another?
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 21, 2025
For the rest of the summer it seemed to get truer and truer.
From "Miracles on Maple Hill" by Virginia Sorensen
Jan Morris once said that the British Empire’s truest morality, real or imagined, was the morality of fair play.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 31, 2026
He said he’s closed his “circle of trust” and expressed regret for actions that, he said, “haven’t been the truest reflection of the person I feel like I am, and how my mother raised me.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 30, 2026
Lamb is a celebrity sheriff in its truest, most American sense.
From Slate ● Jul. 23, 2026
"It's a team in the truest sense of the word. There are no big stars, no freeloaders," Skauge said.
From Barron's ● Feb. 25, 2026
The leading figures in this revolution were men with Greek names, largely unfamiliar to us today, but the truest pioneers in the development of our civilization and our humanity.
From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan
Just three logical functions, called AND, OR and NOT, are needed to process Boole's "trues" and "falses," or Is and Os.
From Time Magazine Archive
The trues had it: 70% in Caracas, 63% in Lima.
From Time Magazine Archive
"I don't care," were among the first words Cousin Magdalen made out clearly, "there isn't two trues, and what I'm telling is real true true, as true as true."
From Hoodie by Lewis Christopher Edward Baumer
I have lived with our trues heroes—the lower middle-classes.”
From The First Violin A Novel by Jessie Fothergill
And if peoples 'zinks so much about trues, they shouldn't vant me to say what isn't true about being in fun when I wasn't in fun.
From Hoodie by Lewis Christopher Edward Baumer
If you've had your Banshee cylinder trued and welded, put the crank into the bottom case and rotate the crank using the rods to do so.
From Time Magazine Archive
With the pyramids the Egyptians created gigantic scientific instruments for measuring the solar year, building their sides trued to the four cardinal directions.
From Time Magazine Archive
Such debates didn't suggest any course of social or political action, and couldn't be trued in to any of her causes.
From The Troubadour by Robert Augustine Ward Lowndes
See if propeller is trued up to within 1⁄8′′.
From Aviation Engines Design?Construction?Operation and Repair by Victor Wilfred Pag?
Illustrations of this principle are as follows: Before proceeding with other processes, a working face and working edge and as many other surfaces as will finally appear in the finished piece, should be trued up.
From Handwork in Wood by William Noyes
Some were engaged in "trueing" the four great foundation beams of what was evidently to be a large building.
From The Westerners by Stewart Edward White
Presently he turned and spoke to the man: “Put your men at work trueing up the roadbed on the next section back, until further orders.”
From 'Firebrand' Trevison by P. V. E. (Percy Van Eman) Ivory
Her strappy sandals are making lots of noise as she runs around the class looking for a truing wheel--to give her pattern the appropriate curve.
From Time Magazine Archive
It is sometimes impracticable to make a surface as smooth as desirable with a truing plane, because of the direction of the grain of the wood.
From Modern Machine-Shop Practice, Volumes I and II by Joshua Rose
This will be a trifle thicker than the course so as to allow for truing the surface of each finished course in the lathe.
From Modern Machine-Shop Practice, Volumes I and II by Joshua Rose
Fuselage.—The method of truing the fuselage is laid down in the aeroplane's specifications.
From The Aeroplane Speaks Fifth Edition by H. (Horatio) Barber
Nearly two months were consumed in truing and smoothing the stone, as all millers in the mill had struck at once when they became acquainted with the character of the changes I proposed to make.
From Scientific American Supplement, No. 275, April 9, 1881 by Various
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
