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Origin and history of truth

truth(n.)

Middle English treuth, truþ, from Old English triewð (West Saxon), treowð (Mercian) "faith, faithfulness; fidelity to country, kin, friends; loyalty; disposition to be faithful; veracity, quality of being true; pledge, covenant."

This is reconstructed to be from a Germanic abstract noun from Proto-Germanic *treuwaz "having or characterized by good faith." This in turn is reconstructed in Watkins to be from PIE *drew-o-, a suffixed form of the root *deru- "be firm, solid, steadfast." With Germanic abstract noun suffix *-itho (see -th (2)). Compare troth, truce, trust (n.), tree (n.). English and most other IE languages do not have a primary verb for "speak the truth," as a contrast to lie (v.).

The sense of "something that is true, a true statement or proposition" is recorded by mid-14c. The meaning "accuracy, correctness, conformity of thought with fact" is from 1560s. It is attested by late 14c. as "that which is righteous or in accordance with divine standard; true religious doctrine; virtuous conduct." Truth! as an expression of assent or emphasis is by 1530s.

Let [Truth] and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter. [Milton, "Areopagitica," 1644]

Truth squad in the U.S. political sense is attested in the 1952 U.S. presidential election campaign.

At midweek the Republican campaign was bolstered by an innovation—the "truth squad" ..., a team of senators who trailed whistle-stopping Harry Truman to field what they denounced as his wild pitches. [Life magazine, Oct. 13, 1952]

Truth-serum "injected truth-drug" is by 1925.

Entries linking to truth

lie(v.1)

"speak falsely, tell an untruth for the purpose of misleading," Middle English lien, from Old English legan, ligan, earlier leogan "deceive, belie, betray" (class II strong verb; past tense leag, past participle logen), from Proto-Germanic *leuganan (source also of Old Norse ljuga, Danish lyve, Old Frisian liaga, Old Saxon and Old High German liogan, German lügen, Gothic liugan), a word of uncertain etymology, with possible cognates in Old Church Slavonic lugati, Russian luigatĭ; not found in Latin, Greek, or Sanskrit. Emphatic lie through (one's) teeth is from 1940s.

tree(n.)

"perennial plant growing from the ground with a self-supporting stem or trunk from which branches grow," Middle English tre, from Old English treo, treow "tree," also "timber, wood, beam, log, stake;" from Proto-Germanic *trewam (source also of Old Frisian tre, Old Saxon trio, Old Norse tre, Gothic triu "tree"), from PIE *drew-o-, suffixed variant form of root *deru- "be firm, solid, steadfast," with specialized senses "wood, tree" and derivatives referring to objects made of wood.

Not found in High German except as the derived word for "tar." For Dutch boom, German Baum, the usual words for "tree," see beam (n.). Middle English also had plural treen, adjective treen (Old English treowen "of a tree, wooden").

The line which divides trees from shrubs is largely arbitrary, and dependent upon habit rather than size, the tree having a single trunk usually unbranched for some distance above the ground, while a shrub has usually several stems from the same root and each without a proper trunk. [Century Dictionary]

In early figurative use often of the trees in the Garden of Eden or the Tree of Life. In Old English and Middle English also mechanically, "thing made of pieces or frames of wood," especially the cross of the Crucifixion and later a gallows (such as Tyburn tree, the famous gallows outside London). The meaning "framework of a saddle" is from 1530s. A tree-nail (Middle English) was a wooden peg or pin used in ship-building.

The meaning "representation of familial relationships in the form of a tree" is from c. 1300. Tree-hugger, contemptuous for "environmentalist" is attested by 1989.