Word of the Day

adjective

"All psychotherapies are based on the fact that memory is not veridical, that unconscious desires and fantasies exert their force on us all.…" (Henry Kaminer, Weekly Standard, July 31, 2000)

We'll tell only the truth here: "veridical" comes from the Latin word "veridicus," which itself is from two other Latin words: "verus," meaning "true," and "dicere," meaning "to say." "Verus" is an ancestor of several English words, among them "verity," "verify," and "very" (which originally meant "true"). The word "verdict" is related to "veridical" on both sides of the family: it also traces back to "verus" and "dicere." "Veridical" itself is the least common of the "verus" words. You're most likely to encounter it in contexts dealing with psychology and philosophy. ]>

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