untruth

What it means

1. countableuncountableA lie or falsehood.

   Herald The prince was swept from the sight of the Achaean host—himself, and his ship likewise. ’Tis no untruth I tell.

   1926, Herbert Weir Smyth, “Agamemnon”, in Aeschylus, with an English translation, volume II, page 55

   2 more examples

   He added: "We've always had spin, especially from Government. But this is not spin. This is dishonesty and so it's our rail media's urgent responsibility to call it out because non-specialist journalists across the country will report this and gradually these untruths will be accepted.

   2022 January 26, Paul Stephen, “Network News: Government's IRP claims condemned as "dishonest"”, in RAIL, number 949, page 7

   It may tell you that the official currency of Switzerland is the euro (it’s actually the Swiss franc) or that Mark Twain’s Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County could not only jump but talk. A.I. researchers call this generation of untruths “hallucination.”

   2023 January 10, Cade Metz, “A.I. Is Becoming More Conversational. But Will It Get More Honest?”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original on 14 Mar 2023

2. countableuncountableThe condition of being false; truthlessness.

In a sentence

Herald The prince was swept from the sight of the Achaean host—himself, and his ship likewise. ’Tis no untruth I tell.

1926, Herbert Weir Smyth, “Agamemnon”, in Aeschylus, with an English translation, volume II, page 55

Where it comes from

1. Proto-West Germanic*untriuwiþu
2. Old Englishuntrēowþ
3. Middle Englishuntreuth
4. Englishuntruth

Inherited from Middle English untreuth, from Old English untrēowþ and unġetrēowþ, from Proto-West Germanic *untriuwiþu and *ungatriuwiþu, equivalent to un- + truth. Cognate with Old High German ungitriuwida.