false Hear it!

false Definition

false (fôls)

adjective fals′er, fals′·est

  1. not true; in error; incorrect; mistaken a false argument
  2. untruthful; lying; dishonest a false witness
  3. disloyal; unfaithful a false friend
  4. deceiving or meant to deceive; misleading a false scent
  5. not real; artificial; counterfeit false teeth
  6. not properly so named; deceptively resembling false jasmine
  7. based on wrong or mistaken ideas false pride
  8. Mech. temporary, nonessential, or added on for protection, disguise, etc. a false drawer
  9. Music pitched inaccurately

Etymology: ME < OFr < fals < L falsus, pp. of fallere, to deceive: see fail

adverb fals′er, fals′·est

in a false manner

false Related Forms
false′ly adverb false′·ness noun
false Idioms

play someone false

to deceive, cheat, hoodwink, or betray someone

put in a false position

to cause misunderstanding of the intentions, opinions, etc. of

false Synonyms

false

modif.

  1. Said of persons

    perfidious, faithless, treacherous, unfaithful, disloyal, dishonest, lying, untruthful, base, hypocritical, double-dealing, knavish, roguish, malevolent, rascally, scoundrelly, mean, malicious, venal, deceitful, mendacious, underhanded, corrupt, forsworn, unscrupulous, untrustworthy, falsehearted, dishonorable, villainous, treasonable, traitorous, seditious, canting, insincere, two-faced*; see also senses 2, 3.

    Antonyms faithful*, true*, honorable. *

  2. Said of statements or supposed facts

    untrue, mistaken, spurious, apocryphal, fanciful, mendacious, untruthful, fictitious, deceptive, concocted, fallacious, incorrect, inaccurate, wrong, sophistical, casuistic, Jesuitical, misleading, delusive, imaginary, illusive, erroneous, invalid, deceiving, misrepresentative, fraudulent, trumped-up, contrary to fact, fishy*, cooked-up*; see also senses 1, 3.

    Antonyms accurate*, correct*, established. *

  3. Said of things

    sham, counterfeit, fabricated, manufactured, synthetic, factitious, bogus, spurious, make-believe, assumed, unreal, not genuine, copied, forged, pretended, faked, made-up, simulated, imitation, lifeless, pseudo, hollow, mock, feigned, bastard, base, shoddy, alloyed, artificial, contrived, colored, disguised, deceptive, adulterated, plated, so-called, meretricious, fake, ersatz, phony*, gyp*, catchpenny*, bum*, false-colored*, queer*, not what it's cracked up to be*; see also senses 1, 2.

    Antonyms real*, genuine*, authentic.

false, in this comparison, refers to anything that is not in essence that which it purports to be and may or may not connote deliberate deception false hair, false eyelashes; sham refers to an imitation or simulation of something and usually connotes intent to deceive sham piety; counterfeit and the colloquial bogus apply to a very careful imitation and always imply intent to deceive or defraud counterfeit, or bogus, money; fake is a less formal term for any person or thing that is not genuine a fake doctor, chimney, etc. See also syn. study at faithless.

play someone false

cheat, trick, betray; see betray 1, deceive.

put in a false position

misrepresent, embarrass, misquote; see betray 1, mistake.

false Usage Examples

Modifying Another Word

  • demonstrably: This claim about the evidence behind homeopathy is demonstrably false.
  • manifestly: Instead, young readers are fed a relentless diet of self-evident, unproved, implausible, and in some cases manifestly false propositions.
  • provably: The archeology simply shows that in some obvious ways the bible is provably false.
  • utterly: It is utterly false to contend that 'this is what the internationalism of the Communist parties rests upon ' .
  • entirely: Secondly, the argument that paying for higher education out of general taxation would be unfair is an entirely false one.

Infinitive complement

  • suggest: It is false to suggest that anyone else was involved - it was an accident.
  • say: You know it is false to say I meant they had done their work well in destroying property.

Modifies a noun

  • prophet: Verse 1: many false prophets have gone out into the world.
  • alarm: In November a false alarm went out on a calm Tuesday evening.
  • pretense: Anything less than this is deception, is imposition, is false pretense.
  • accusation: Love does not listen to false accusations nor does it make them.
  • impression: Yet there was no shortage of false impressions about GM wheat.
  • allegation: Once in your home various false allegations could be made against you.

Used with adjective complement

  • return: Otherwise the method would return false indicating the View s are layed out in ascending order.
  • prove: But so far our companies have been coping well, and prophecies of doom from the strong pound have proved false.
  • ring: There isn't a song on the tape that rings false.
  • consider: Strings are considered false if and only if they are empty. null and undefined are considered false.
  • become: His sorrow, like his relation to the war, becomes false.
  • set: If error is set false after an error, the program will continue, but results should be treated with suspicion.
false Quotes

Be so true to thyself as thou be not false to others.

—Bacon, Francis,Viscount St Albans

Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.

—Bible (NewTestament)

My native heath is brown beneath, My native waters blue; But crimson red o'er both shall spread, Ere I am false to you, Dear land! Ere I am false to you.

—O'Hagan,John pseudonym Sliabh Cuilinn

Unsterblichkeit der Individualit a« t verlangen heiÞt eigentlich einen Irrtum ins Unendliche perpetuieren wollen. Denn im Grunde ist doch jede Individualit a« t nur ein spezieller Irrtum, Fehltritt, etwas, das besser nicht w a« re, ja wovon uns zuru«  ckzubringen der eigentliche Zweck des Lebens ist. To desire immortality for theindividual isreally thesame as wanting to perpetuate an error for ever; for at bottom every individuality is really only a special error, a false step, something that it would be better should not be, in fact something from which it isthe real purpose of life to bring us back.

—Schopenhauer, Arthur

Tout est faux, il n'y a personne†il n'y a rien. Everything is false. There is no one†there is nothing.

—Beckett, Samuel

The self-fulfilling prophecy is, in the beginning, a false definition of thesituation evoking a new behavior which makes the originally false conception come true. The specious validity of the self-fulfilling prophecy perpetuates a reign of error.

—Merton, Robert King

Quite as many false ideas prevail as to woman's true position in the home as to her status elsewhere. Womanhood is the great fact in her life; wifehood and motherhood are but incidental relations.

—Stanton, Elizabeth ne¤  e  Cady

Search then the Ruling Passion:There, alone, The wild are constant and the cunning known; The fool consistent, and the false sincere; Priests, princes, women, no dissemblers here. This clue once found, unravels all the rest.

—Pope, Alexander

My thoughtless youth was winged with vain desires, My manhood, long misled by wandering fires, Followed false lights; and when their glimpse was gone My pride struck out new sparkles of her own† Good life be now my task: my doubts are done; (What more could fright my faith thanThree in One?)

—Dryden,John

In friendship false, implacable in hate: Resolved to ruin or to rule the state.

—Dryden,John

It is impossible that a man who is false to his friends and neighbours should be true to the public.

—Berkeley, George

I think and think for months and years. Ninety-nine times, the conclusion is false. The hundredth time I am right.

—Einstein, Albert

The origin of all science is in the desire to know causes; and the origin of all false science and imposture is in the desire to accept false causes rather than none; or, which 388 is the same thing, in the unwillingness to acknowledge our own ignorance.

—Hazlitt,William

What makes all doctrines plain and clear? About two hundred pounds a year. And that which was prov'd true before, Prove false again? Two hundred more.

—Butler, Samuel

Pour ce qu'alors je de¤  sirais vaquer seulement a'   la recherche de la ve¤  rite¤ ,  je pensai qu'il fallait que je†rejetasse comme absolument faux tout ce en quoi je pourrais imaginer le moindre doute, afin de voir s'il ne resterait point, apre'  s cela, quelque chose en ma cre¤  ance qui f u" t entie'  rement indubitable. Sincemy present aimwastogivemyself up tothepursuit of truth alone, I thought I must†reject as if absolutely false anything as to which I could imagine the least doubt, in order to see if I should not be left at the end believing something that was absolutely indubitable.

—Descartes, Rene¤

The criterion which we use to test the genuineness of apparent statements of fact is the criterion of verifiability.We say that a sentence isfactually significant to any given person, if, and only if, he knows how to 44 verify the proposition which it purports to express ö that is, if he knows what observations would lead him, under certain conditions, to accept the proposition as being true, or reject it as being false.

—Ayer, SirAlfred Jules

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky, The flying cloud, the frosty light: The year is dying in the night; Ring out, wild bells, and let him die. Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring, happy bells, across the snow: The year isgoing, let him go; Ring out the false, ring in the true.

—Tennyson

For to interpose a little ease, Let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise.

—Milton,John

The true poet is most easily distinguished from the false when he trusts himself to the simplest expression and writes without adjectives.

—Pound, Ezra Loomis

Je pris garde que, pendant queje voulais ainsi penserque tout e¤  tait faux, il fallait ne¤  cessairement que moi, qui le pensais, fusse quelque chose. Deschamps I noticed that while I was trying to thinkeverything false, it must needs be that I, who was thinking this, was something.

—Descartes, Rene¤

When you are old and greyand full of sleep, And nodding by the fire, take down this book, And slowly read, and dream of the soft look Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep; How many loved your moments of glad grace, And loved your beauty with love false or true, But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, And loved the sorrows of your changing face; And bending down beside the glowing bars, Murmur, a little sadly how Love fled And paced among the mountains overhead And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

—Yeats,W(illiam) B(utler)