mendacity
untruthfulness
TRANSLATION
mendacity = die Verlogenheit --- GOOGLE INDEX mendacity: approximately 450,000 Google hits
STATISTICS
IN THE PRESS
In an age of reality television, journalistic fakery and political MENDACITY everyone knows that words and images can distort and mislead.
(New York Times)
---
Will Hillary Clinton's MENDACITY be her downfall...again?
(www.examiner.com)
(New York Times)
---
Will Hillary Clinton's MENDACITY be her downfall...again?
(www.examiner.com)
Did you
know?
mendacity
noun
- untruthfulness
(Oxford Dictionary)
---
Mendacity is just a fancy way of describing lying or the act of being untruthful. It stems from the Late Latin mendacitas (falsehood) and the Latin mendax (lying, a liar). The adjective is mendacious.
Words like mendacity can be useful in situations where you want to say something without sounding accusatory. For instance, instead of "He was lying in that report," you could say "We uncovered a high degree of mendacity in his report." That sounds more like a simple statement of fact whereas "lying" comes off as an accusation.
On the other hand, words like mendacity let you create written compact text that gets right to the point, as illustrated by this terrific sentence: "Blatant mendacity, Mr. Stewart said, has become ubiquitous and pernicious." Without these words, it might sound like this. "Mr Stewart said that the very obvious and shameless untruthfulness seemed to be everywhere and was having a harmful effect.
---
SYNONYMS
deceit, deception, falsehood, lying, prevarication, untruthfulness
---
SMUGGLE OWAD into today's conversation
"Is it my imagination or is there more mendacity among politicians these days?"
---
Thanks to Sabine for suggesting today's word!
noun
- untruthfulness
(Oxford Dictionary)
---
Mendacity is just a fancy way of describing lying or the act of being untruthful. It stems from the Late Latin mendacitas (falsehood) and the Latin mendax (lying, a liar). The adjective is mendacious.
Words like mendacity can be useful in situations where you want to say something without sounding accusatory. For instance, instead of "He was lying in that report," you could say "We uncovered a high degree of mendacity in his report." That sounds more like a simple statement of fact whereas "lying" comes off as an accusation.
On the other hand, words like mendacity let you create written compact text that gets right to the point, as illustrated by this terrific sentence: "Blatant mendacity, Mr. Stewart said, has become ubiquitous and pernicious." Without these words, it might sound like this. "Mr Stewart said that the very obvious and shameless untruthfulness seemed to be everywhere and was having a harmful effect.
---
SYNONYMS
deceit, deception, falsehood, lying, prevarication, untruthfulness
---
SMUGGLE OWAD into today's conversation
"Is it my imagination or is there more mendacity among politicians these days?"
---
Thanks to Sabine for suggesting today's word!
