What's the difference between
and
Enter two words to compare and contrast their definitions, origins, and synonyms to better understand how those words are related.

Truth vs Excuse - What's the difference?

truth | excuse |

As nouns the difference between truth and excuse

is that truth is the state or quality of being true to someone or something while excuse is an explanation designed to avoid or alleviate guilt or negative judgment.

As verbs the difference between truth and excuse

is that truth is to assert as true; to declare, to speak truthfully while excuse is to forgive; to pardon.

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 The colossus of science was not the first king of reason, Keynes wrote after reading Newton’s unpublished manuscripts.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

    *

    excuse

    English

    Verb

    (excus)
  • To forgive; to pardon.
  • I excused him his transgressions.
  • * Shakespeare
  • I must excuse what cannot be amended.
  • * Archbishop Sharp
  • A man's persuasion that a thing is duty, will not excuse him from guilt in practising it, if really and indeed it be against God's law.
  • To allow to leave.
  • May I be excused from the table?
    I excused myself from the proceedings to think over what I'd heard.
  • To provide an excuse for; to explain, with the aim of alleviating guilt or negative judgement.
  • You know he shouldn't have done it, so don't try to excuse his behavior!
  • To relieve of an imputation by apology or defense; to make apology for as not seriously evil; to ask pardon or indulgence for.
  • * Bible, 2. Corinthians xii. 19
  • Think ye that we excuse ourselves to you?

    Synonyms

    * forgive, let off the hook, let pass, pardon, unguilt

    Derived terms

    * excuse me * excuse my French

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • An explanation designed to avoid or alleviate guilt or negative judgment.
  • Tell me why you were late – and I don't want to hear any excuses !
  • (legal) A defense to a criminal or civil charge wherein the accused party admits to doing acts for which legal consequences would normally be appropriate, but asserts that special circumstances relieve that party of culpability for having done those acts.
  • An example.(attention)
  • That thing is a poor excuse for a gingerbread man. Hasn't anyone taught you how to bake?
    He's a sorry excuse of a doctor.

    Usage notes

    * We often say to make an excuse.

    Synonyms

    * (explanation designed to avoid or alleviate guilt or negative judgment ): pretext