Also 7 veracitie. [ad. F. véracité (= It. veracità, Sp. veracidad, Pg. veracidade), or med.L. vērācitāt-, vērācitās, f. L. vērāci-, vērax, f. vēr-us real, true.]
1. The quality or character in persons of speaking or stating the truth; habitual observance of the truth; truthfulness, veraciousness.
1623. in Cockeram, I.
1624. H. Mason, New Art Lying, v. 95. Truth morally taken, which hee calleth veracitie.
1678. Norris, Coll. Misc. (1699), 154. A due conformity between the Words and the Understanding, when I speak as I think; which is moral Truth or Veracity.
1714. R. Fiddes, Pract. Disc., II. 87. Veracity … is a moral virtue, and consists in a due conformity of our words, or declarations, with our thoughts.
1775. Johnson, Tax no Tyr., 57. To send deputies to the Congress of Philadelphia, to that seat of Virtue and Veracity.
1809. Coleridge, Friend (1865), 23. Veracity, therefore, not mere accuracy; to convey truth, not merely to say it, is the point of duty in dispute.
1860. Emerson, Cond. Life, Illusions, Wks. (Bohn), II. 447. I look upon the simple and childish virtues of veracity and honesty as the root of all that is sublime in character.
1900. L. Huxley, Life & Lett. T. H. Huxley, II. 427. Huxley’s passion for veracity was perhaps his strongest characteristic.
b. Of veracity, trustworthy, veracious, truthful. (Also with qualifying adjectives.)
1671. J. Webster, Metallogr., i. 8. Authors … of the greatest authority and veracity.
1700. Astry, trans. Saavedra-Faxardo, I. 88. Speaking of a Man of Veracity, we say he carries his Heart in his Hands.
1704. in Pennsylv. Hist. Soc. Mem., IX. 331. Those in this place, of unblemished credit and undoubted veracity, who were witnesses.
1737. Gentl. Mag., VII. 11. The same Author of veracity attests, that [etc.].
1780. Harris, Philol. Enq., Wks. (1841), 494. Philosophers, men of veracity, studied the heavenly bodies.
1839. G. P. R. James, Louis XIV., III. 31. A few instances … from one author alone, of undoubted veracity.
c. This quality as manifested in individuals. Const. of (a person) or with possessive.
1669. W. Simpson, Hydrol. Chym., 114. I … doubt not of the veracity of that noble philosopher.
1687. T. Brown, Saints in Uproar, Wks. 1730, I. 81. Authors of that undoubted credit, that no body … will call their veracity in question.
1726. Swift, Gulliver, I. viii. Which, after great astonishment, clearly convinced him of my veracity.
1785. Paley, Mor. Philos., III. I. xv. All the benefit of conversation, depends upon our opinion of the speaker’s veracity.
1840. Hood, Up Rhine, 2. But for the preparations … going on before my eyes, I should have … doubts of my own veracity.
1870. J. H. Newman, Gram. Assent, I. ii. 14. The child assents … to the veracity of his mother in her assertion of the inapprehensible.
2. Agreement of statement or report with the actual fact or facts; accordance with truth; correctness, accuracy.
1736. Butler, Anal., II. vii. 369. Mere genealogies … perhaps do carry some presumption of veracity.
1750. Johnson, Rambler, No. 4, ¶ 19. In narratives where historical veracity has no place.
1825. Coleridge, in Lit. Rem. (1839), IV. 275. The character of veracity and simplicity on the very countenance, as it were, of the Gospel.
1860. Emerson, Cond. Life, Fate, Wks. (Bohn), II. 316. No picture of life can have any veracity that does not admit the odious facts.
b. Const. of or with possessive.
1664. H. More, Myst. Iniq., 101. The veracity of the voice of Christ sounding in the Scriptures.
1684. T. Goddard, Plato’s Demon, 100. For Testimony concerning the Veracity of his History, we find even [etc.].
a. 1706. Evelyn, Hist. Relig. (1850), I. 386. Were the tradition of the Scriptures’ antiquity and veracity not enough.
1755. Lloyd, in Connoisseur, No. 73. 434. The veracity of these posthumous encomiums may, indeed, be fairly suspected.
1803. Edwin, I. vi. 89. The band of warriors no longer doubting the veracity of his words.
1843. G. S. Faber, Eight Dissert. (1845), I. 151. Such, at least, is the ancient narrative:… and … I see no reason to disbelieve its general veracity.
1902. Hichens, Londoners, 42. Finding the veracity of his paragraph thus impugned.
3. Correspondence with external facts; exactness in the indication of these.
1666. Bp. S. Parker, Free & Impart. Censure (1667), 59. Suppose that we were born with these congenite Anticipations,… how can I be certaine of their Truth and Veracity?
1837. Dickens, Pickw., ii. He was under the painful necessity of admitting the veracity of his optics.
1869. F. W. Newman, Misc., 53. Every Specific Informant [i.e., scientific instrument] needs to have its veracity put to the test.
4. That which is true; a truthful statement; a truth.
1852. F. W. Robertson, Serm., Ser. III. xvi. (1857), 204. It is possible for a man to utter veracities and yet to be false to himself and to his God.
1867. Stubbs, Study Med. & Mod. Hist. (1886), 18. A world whose falsehoods and veracities are separated by so very thin a barrier.
5. Comb., as veracity-assuring, -serving.
1802–12. Bentham, Ration. Judic. Evid. (1827), I. 194. According as … the force of … the veracity-insuring … motives is the strongest. Ibid., 282. Veracity-serving information, information considered as a source of truth.
