half-truth

English

Alternative forms

• half truth

Etymology

From half- +‎ truth.

Noun

half-truth (countable and uncountable, plural half-truths)

1. A deceptive statement, especially one that is only partly true, is incomplete, misrepresents reality by telling part of the truth, or alters the time sequence of truths.
   • 1962 August, “Let's have plain speaking”, in Modern Railways, page 74:

     The Minister no doubt would claim that the public has already expressed its opinion by deserting the trains. As we have said before, this is scarcely a half-truth. By and large, where there has been a decline the public has deserted the out-dated trains; [...].

Usage notes

• Half-truths may use various tools, including statistics, unexpected meanings of words, facts taken out of context, or even nonstandard punctuation to corrupt the meaning conveyed by an otherwise true statement. For more information, see Wikipedia's article "Lie".

Related terms

• truth
• true
• anti-truth

Translations

A deceptive statement

• Czech: polopravda (cs) f
• Dutch: halve waarheid f
• Esperanto: duonveraĵo
• Finnish: puolitotuus (fi)
• French: demi-vérité (fr) f, semi-vérité f
• German: Halbwahrheit (de) f
• Macedonian: полувистина f (poluvistina)
• Polish: półprawda f
• Portuguese: meia verdade f, meia-verdade f
• Russian: полупра́вда (ru) f (poluprávda)
• Serbo-Croatian: poluistina (sh)
• Spanish: verdad a medias f
• Swedish: halvsanning (sv) c
• Thai: ความจริงครึ่งเดียว

See also

• lie
• contextomy
• white lie