Other forms: truest, truer
True means it matches the facts. If the timetable says the train leaves at six and the train leaves at six, the timetable is true. A true story is one that actually happened.
True stretches past facts into loyalty and genuineness. A true friend stands by you; a dog stays true and never leaves your side; true love is the real thing rather than a passing crush. Builders and cyclists use it for straightness: a wheel that runs true does not wobble, and a door hung out of true will not close. The noun is truth and the adverb is truly — and mind the difference, because it is true that he left, never it is truth. Wishes come true, people show their true colours, and anything too good to be true almost never is.
1adjectivetrueAgreeing with the facts; not false.~25%
“It is true that the shop closes early on Sundays.”
2adjectivegenuineReal and genuine; deserving the name.~65%
“This is a true story, every word of it.”
3adjectivefaithfulLoyal and faithful.~8%
“She stayed true to her word and paid back every penny.”
synonyms: faithful, loyal
4adjectivecorrectlyCorrectly aligned; perfectly straight.~2%
“The old gate no longer hangs true and scrapes the path.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 13 sentences found in the wild and placed 12 of them on a sense (1 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
True began as a word about loyalty, not facts. Old English trēowe meant faithful, from Proto-Germanic *triwwiz, from a Proto-Indo-European root *drew- meaning firm and hard. German treu still means loyal, and Swedish trygg means safe. The idea underneath is solidity: what is true is what holds when you lean on it.
Middle English
trewe
English, today
true
Built from
From Middle English trewe. From Middle English treowe, trew, trewe, triwe, true, trwe, from Old English trēowe, trīewe (“faithful, true”), from Proto-Germanic triwwiz (“faithful, true”), from pre-Germanic drewh₂yos, from Proto-Indo-European drew-* (“firm, hard, true”). 2
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA