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Truth vs Evidence - What's the difference?

truth | evidence |

As nouns the difference between truth and evidence

is that truth is the state or quality of being true to someone or something while evidence is facts or observations presented in support of an assertion.

As verbs the difference between truth and evidence

is that truth is to assert as true; to declare, to speak truthfully while evidence is to provide evidence for, or suggest the truth of.

truth

English

Alternative forms

* trewth (obsolete)

Noun

(order of senses) (en-noun)
  • The state or quality of being true to someone or something.
  • (label) Faithfulness, fidelity.
  • * (Samuel Taylor Coleridge) (1772-1834)
  • Alas! they had been friends in youth, / But whispering tongues can poison truth .
  • (label) A pledge of loyalty or faith.
  • True facts, genuine depiction or statements of reality.
  • * (Samuel Taylor Coleridge) (1772-1834)
  • The truth depends on, or is only arrived at by, a legitimate deduction from all the facts which are truly material.
  • *{{quote-magazine, date=2014-06-21, volume=411, issue=8892, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= Magician’s brain , passage=The truth is that [Isaac] Newton was very much a product of his time. The colossus of science was not the first king of reason, Keynes wrote after reading Newton’s unpublished manuscripts. Instead “he was the last of the magicians”.}}
  • Conformity to fact or reality; correctness, accuracy.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2012-01, author=Robert M. Pringle, volume=100, issue=1, page=31, magazine=(American Scientist), title= How to Be Manipulative
  • , passage=As in much of biology, the most satisfying truths in ecology derive from manipulative experimentation. Tinker with nature and quantify how it responds.}}
  • Conformity to rule; exactness; close correspondence with an example, mood, model, etc.
  • * John Mortimer (1656?-1736)
  • Ploughs, to go true, depend much on the truth of the ironwork.
  • That which is real, in a deeper sense; spiritual or ‘genuine’ reality.
  • * 1820 , (John Keats), (Ode on a Grecian Urn)
  • Beauty is truth', ' truth beauty, - that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
  • (label) Something acknowledged to be true; a true statement or axiom.
  • * 1813 , (Jane Austen), (Pride and Prejudice)
  • It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.
  • Topness. (See also truth quark.)
  • Synonyms

    * See

    Antonyms

    * falsehood, falsity, lie, nonsense, untruth, half-truth

    Derived terms

    * half-truth * if truth be told * tell the truth * truthful * truthiness * truthless * truth or dare * truth serum * truthy

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • (obsolete) To assert as true; to declare, to speak truthfully.
  • Had they [the ancients] dreamt this, they would have truthed it heaven. — Ford.
    1966', ''You keep lying, when you oughta be '''truthin' — Nancy Sinatra, "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'"

    See also

    * (wikipedia)

    Statistics

    *

    evidence

    Noun

    (en-noun)
  • Facts or observations presented in support of an assertion.
  • *
  • , title=(The Celebrity), chapter=1 , passage=In the old days, to my commonplace and unobserving mind, he gave no evidences of genius whatsoever. He never read me any of his manuscripts, […], and therefore my lack of detection of his promise may in some degree be pardoned.}}
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2012-03, author=
  • , volume=100, issue=2, page=106, magazine=(w) , title= Pixels or Perish , passage=Drawings and pictures are more than mere ornaments in scientific discourse. Blackboard sketches, geological maps, diagrams of molecular structure, astronomical photographs, MRI images, the many varieties of statistical charts and graphs: These pictorial devices are indispensable tools for presenting evidence , for explaining a theory, for telling a story.}}
  • (legal) Anything admitted by a court to prove or disprove alleged matters of fact in a trial.
  • * {{quote-news, year=2004, date=April 15, work=The Scotsman
  • , title= Morning swoop in hunt for Jodi's killer , passage=For Lothian and Borders Police, the early-morning raid had come at the end one of biggest investigations carried out by the force, which had originally presented a dossier of evidence on the murder of Jodi Jones to the Edinburgh procurator-fiscal, William Gallagher, on 25 November last year. }}
  • One who bears witness.
  • * Sir (Walter Scott)
  • infamous and perjured evidences

    Derived terms

    * anecdotal evidence * circumstantial evidence * evidence-based medicine * hearsay evidence

    Derived terms

    * after-discovered evidence * clear and convincing evidence * demurrer to evidence * preponderance of evidence, preponderance of the evidence * self-evidence

    Verb

    (evidenc)
  • To provide evidence for, or suggest the truth of.
  • She was furious, as evidenced by her slamming the door.