falsehood

/ˌfɔlsˈhʊd/

/ˈfɔlshʊd/

Other forms: falsehoods

A falsehood is a lie. If your mom has an uncanny knack for knowing when you're telling a falsehood, it means she always knows when you're stretching the truth.

The noun falsehood is a slightly fancy or old-fashioned way of saying "lie." It's hard to ever completely trust a friend again once he's told you a falsehood, although sometimes people tell small falsehoods simply to make others feel better. Telling your aunt her pink hair looks fine is a small falsehood, while lying about your grades on a college application is a pretty big falsehood. The Latin root is falsus, "deceived or erroneous."

Definitions of falsehood

1. noun

   a false statement
   synonyms: falsity, untruth

   antonyms:

   truth

   a true statement

   types:

   dodge, dodging, scheme

   a statement that evades the question by cleverness or trickery

   lie, prevarication

   a statement that deviates from or perverts the truth

   fable, fabrication, fiction

   a deliberately false or improbable account

   deceit, deception, misrepresentation

   a misleading falsehood

   contradiction, contradiction in terms

   (logic) a statement that is necessarily false

   bill of goods

   communication (written or spoken) that persuades someone to accept something untrue or undesirable

   humbug, snake oil

   communication (written or spoken) intended to deceive

   antinomy

   a contradiction between two statements that seem equally reasonable

   paradox

   (logic) a statement that contradicts itself

   fib, story, tale, taradiddle, tarradiddle

   a trivial lie

   jactitation

   (law) a false boast that can harm others; especially a false claim to be married to someone (formerly actionable at law)

   walloper, whopper

   a gross untruth; a blatant lie

   white lie

   an unimportant lie (especially one told to be tactful or polite)

   canard

   a deliberately misleading fabrication

   half-truth

   a partially true statement intended to deceive or mislead

   facade, window dressing

   a showy misrepresentation intended to conceal something unpleasant

   exaggeration, magnification, overstatement

   making to seem more important than it really is

   snow job

   a long and elaborate misrepresentation

   dissembling, feigning, pretence, pretense

   pretending with intention to deceive

   blind, subterfuge

   something intended to misrepresent the true nature of an activity

   hanky panky, hocus-pocus, jiggery-pokery, skulduggery, skullduggery, slickness, trickery

   verbal misrepresentation intended to take advantage of you in some way

   duplicity, fraudulence

   a fraudulent or duplicitous representation

   equivocation, evasion

   a statement that is not literally false but that cleverly avoids an unpleasant truth

   type of:

   statement

   a message that is stated or declared; a communication (oral or written) setting forth particulars or facts etc
2. noun

   the act of rendering something false as by fraudulent changes (of documents or measures etc.) or counterfeiting
   synonyms: falsification

   types:

   frame-up, setup

   an act that incriminates someone on a false charge

   sophistication

   falsification by the use of sophistry; misleading by means of specious fallacies

   forgery

   criminal falsification by making or altering an instrument with intent to defraud

   type of:

   dishonesty, knavery

   lack of honesty; acts of lying or cheating or stealing