med_cat: (Default)
Nechama Chaya ([personal profile] med_cat) wrote in [community profile] 1word1day2013-06-07 06:00 am

Friday word: Mendacious

A Latin word this week :)
~~~
 MENDACIOUS : given to or characterized by deception or falsehood or divergence from absolute truth

Examples:

The newspaper story was mendacious and hurtful.

Indeed, the racist and Malthusian elements in Darwin's work are subjects on which the new secularists are either silent, delicate, or mendacious. —Eugene McCarraher, Commonweal, 15 June 2007


Etymology:
Latin mendac-, mendax, lying

First Known Use: 1616

[identity profile] theidolhands.livejournal.com 2013-06-07 12:35 pm (UTC)(link)
'nother great choice.

[identity profile] prettygoodword.livejournal.com 2013-06-07 02:31 pm (UTC)(link)
Yes, but is it a bald-faced lie?

---L.

[identity profile] prettygoodword.livejournal.com 2013-06-10 02:32 pm (UTC)(link)
Just playing with meanings. (The answer usually is "no" -- mendacious usually implies a more subtle swerving from the strict truth, as in selectively omitting details to convey the wrong impression or sometimes even telling the truth in such a way as it is disbelieved. A bald-faced lie is a flat-out falsehood.)

---L.
Edited 2013-06-10 14:33 (UTC)