falsehoods
Claims without truth
Falsehoods are statements that aren't true—lies, fabrications, or mistaken claims.
The word covers both deliberate deception and honest error: The article was full of falsehoods.
Falsehood can also refer to the quality of being false or the practice of lying: a culture of falsehood and evasion.
Trivial, harmless falsehood
- whopperOutsized thing or untruth
- tall taleWildly exaggerated story
- prevaricationMisleading speech avoiding directness
- misstatementIncorrect assertion of fact
misrepresentation · perjury · equivocation · distortion · exaggeration · mendacity · white lie · half-truth
Deliberate falsehood
- untruthA false statement
- deceitDeliberate misleading of others
- duplicityDeliberate misleading behavior
- guileSly, strategic dishonesty
subterfuge · fraud · hoax · chicanery · artifice · dissembling · trickery · imposture
Traditional explanatory tale
- legendUnverified traditional tale
- folkloreInherited cultural narratives
- fableMoral tale with animals
- mythologyBody of traditional tales
pantheon · creation story · cosmogony · oral tradition · epic · saga · parable · allegory
Erroneous belief or understanding
- errorFault in communication
- mistakeWrong action or decision
- inaccuracyLack of precision
- fallacyError in reasoning
delusion · illusion · misbelief · misunderstanding · wrong idea · mistaken belief · popular myth · received wisdom
fib
Trivial, harmless falsehood
- whopperOutsized thing or untruth
- tall taleWildly exaggerated story
- prevaricationMisleading speech avoiding directness
misstatement · misrepresentation · perjury · equivocation · distortion · exaggeration · mendacity · white lie · half-truth · fabrication
lie
Deliberate falsehood
- untruthA false statement
- deceitDeliberate misleading of others
- duplicityDeliberate misleading behavior
guile · subterfuge · fraud · hoax · chicanery · artifice · dissembling · trickery · imposture · sham
myth
Traditional explanatory tale
mythology · pantheon · creation story · cosmogony · oral tradition · epic · saga · parable · allegory · superstition
misconception
Erroneous belief or understanding
- errorFault in communication
- mistakeWrong action or decision
- inaccuracyLack of precision
fallacy · delusion · illusion · misbelief · misunderstanding · wrong idea · mistaken belief · popular myth · received wisdom
- Mistakes & Liesmistakes, lies, errors, error, mistake
- deceptionslie, lies, lying, deceit, decoy
- lies & deceptionlies, fibs, whoppers, tall tales, white lies
- misinformationmisinformation, disinformation, fake news, hoaxes, lies
- errorserror, mistake, blunder, blunders, fault
- Bunkbalderdash, baloney, bosh, bunk, bunkum
falsehoodstruths
Accurate statements about reality
facts · verities · realities · actualities · certainties
falsehoodshard evidence