veritas means the Goddess of truth, a daughter of Saturn, and the mother of Virtus, also sometimes considered the daughter of Jupiter, or a creation of Prometheus; she is equivalent to Aletheia in Greek mythology. It carries an Arena rating of 1734, earned across 54 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, veritas ranks #190 of 40,262 for Qualifying, #522 of 17,111 for Most Sublime Words, #755 of 17,120 for Most Beautiful Words, #874 of 17,093 for Most Storied Words.
veritas is pronounced /ˈvɛɹɪtɑːs/.
Why “veritas” is a great word
The abstract, divine principle of truth itself, personified as its Roman goddess. From Latin vēritās ("truth, truthfulness"), from vērus ("true"), from Proto-Indo-European *were-o- ("true, trustworthy"). Unlike "verum" (which denotes a specific, factual true thing) or "vérité" (which implies a gritty, documentary slice of reality), veritas is the ideal, unattainable essence. It is the blindfolded statue in the forum, the silence that follows a lie exposed, and the slow, sure erosion of deceit by time’s patient hand—the ghost that haunts every human approximation of the real, undeniable in its final clarity.
Etymology
Borrowed from Latin vēritās (“truth; verity”).
name
- The Goddess of truth, a daughter of Saturn, and the mother of Virtus, also sometimes considered the daughter of Jupiter, or a creation of Prometheus; she is equivalent to Aletheia in Greek mythology
noun
- Truth, particularly of a transcendent character.e.g.“Over at Harvard, students are pursuing a different kind of sexual veritas.”
Words closest in meaning
By meaning, not spelling — each word's AI semantic fingerprint, nearest first.
- verity 79% match — Truth, fact or reality, especially an enduring religious or ethical truth; veracity. vs veritas →
- veridity 69% match — truth; veridicality vs veritas →
- veritability 65% match — The quality or degree of being veritable. vs veritas →
- veridicality 62% match — Truth. vs veritas →
- truthness 61% match — The quality or state of a statement being true. vs veritas →
- verisimilitude 60% match — The property of seeming true, of resembling reality; resemblance to reality. vs veritas →
- virtue 60% match — (uncountable) The idea of all that is good or excellent (in every sense of those terms) in a human being, collectively instantiated by a varying number of human traits known as "the virtues", the enumeration of which vary by the many virtue systems which have developed within different cultures, religions, and historical periods. vs veritas →
- verism 59% match — Presenting common, everyday subjects, specifically eschewing the heroic or legendary. vs veritas →