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verisimilitude

UK/vɛɹɪsɪˈmɪlɪtjuːd/
nounC2Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #13,388 of 15,258leans written

Verisimilitude is the appearance of being real or true. Lend verisimilitude, a lack of verisimilitude, for verisimilitude.

It is a critical term for how convincing a fiction feels rather than whether anything in it happened. The Latin is two words, meaning likeness to truth, which is exactly what the concept claims.

Definitions of verisimilitude

  1. 1nounverisimilitudeThe appearance of being real or true.C2

    “The director filmed in real prisons to give the movie greater verisimilitude.”

verisimilitude is an appearance.

Remember it

The Latin parts are true and likeness, the same likeness inside similar. Verisimilitude is looking similar enough to the truth to pass for it.

hooks ontosimilar

Where it comes from

Latin verisimilitudo means likeness to truth, from verus, true, plus similis, like.

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *weh₁-

  2. Latin

    vērīsimilitūdō — likeness to truth

  3. Middle French

    vérisimilitude

  4. English, today

    verisimilitude

Built from

  • vērus · Latin — true, real
  • similitūdō · Latin — likeness, resemblance

From Middle French vérisimilitude, from Latin vērīsimilitūdō (“likeness to truth”), more correctly written separately as vērī similitūdō; from vērī, genitive singular of vērus (“true, real”), + similitūdō (“likeness, resemblance”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

verisimilitude in the wild

  • Greater verisimilitude is given by a series of newspaper articles commenting on events and on the novel's characters from a distance.

    The Blind Assassin

  • The problem of verisimilitude is the problem of articulating what it takes for one false theory to be closer to the truth than another false theory.

    Verisimilitude

  • In a series of papers in the 1970s, Miller and others uncovered defects in Popper's formal definition of verisimilitude, previously a mostly ignored aspect of Popper's theory.

    David Miller (philosopher)

  • For additional verisimilitude, these films often featured American and British stars in the lead roles.

    Eurospy film

  • Lovecraft, the story is "told with a severely homely air of journalistic verisimilitude", yet "conveys terrible hints of shocking mystery".

    The Spook House

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the vērus family

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verisimilitude — used about once every 20,553 pages · #13,388 · point at the bar for the others