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''verisimilitude'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260817185222-00-⌔

verisimilitude - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

verisimilitude (countable and uncountable, plural verisimilitudes)

  • The property of seeming true, of resembling reality; resemblance to reality.
    • ✤ Coordinate terms: realisticness, realism
  • A statement which merely appears to be true.
    • ✤ Synonym: truthiness
  • (in composing a fiction) Faithfulness to its own rules; internal cohesion.
    • ✤ On July 12, Madame filed suit for divorce, naming one Jane McManus as his principal mistress. Other adulteries were noted in the interest of verisimilitude.1

Etymology

From Middle French vérisimilitude, from Latin vērīsimilitūdō (“likeness to truth”), more correctly written separately as vērī similitūdō; from vērī, genitive singular of vērus (“true, real”), + similitūdō (“likeness, resemblance”).

Pronunciation

  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /vɛɹɪsɪˈmɪlɪtjuːd/
  • Audio (Southern England): 🔊

Printed 2026-08-17.

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Footnotes

  1. 1973, Gore Vidal, chapter 16, in Burr: ↩