mendacity

noun
/mɛnˈdæsəti/UK/mɛnˈdæsəti/US

Etymology

From Late Latin mendacitas, from Latin mendāx (“deceitful, deceptive, lying”) + -itās (suffix forming nouns indicating a state of being). Mendāx is derived from mentior (“to deceive, lie”) (from mēns, mentis (“mind; intellect; judgment, reasoning”), from Proto-Indo-European *méntis (“thought”)) + -āx (suffix forming adjectives expressing a tendency or inclination), or from Proto-Indo-European *mend- (“to fault”). By surface analysis, Latin mendāc- + -ity.

  1. derived from *mend-
  2. derived from *méntis
  3. derived from mendacitas

Definitions

  1. The fact or condition of being untruthful

    The fact or condition of being untruthful; dishonesty.

    • […] Treating the assertion of the witness as the effect, he [Pierre-Simon Laplace] considers as its two possible causes, the veracity or mendacity of the witness on the particular occasion, that is, the truth or falsity of the fact.
    • Big Daddy: […] Think of all the lies I got to put up with!—Pretenses! Ain't that mendacity? Having to pretend stuff you don't think or feel or have any idea of?
  2. A deceit, falsehood, or lie.

    • The scandalous bronze-lacker age, of hungry animalisms, spiritual impotencies and mendacities, will have to run its course, till the Pit swallow it.
    • He would have you believe that every error we make is deliberate, that journalists have somehow ginned up a unified conspiracy of lies and mendacities against him.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for mendacity. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA