mendacious

adjective men·da·cious \ men-ˈdā-shəs \

Updated on: 26 May 2018

Definition of mendacious

: given to or characterized by deception or falsehood or divergence from absolute truth

mendacious tales of his adventures

—

mendaciously

adverb

—

mendaciousness

noun

See mendacious defined for English-language learners

See mendacious defined for kids

mendacious was our Word of the Day on 10/24/2010. Hear the podcast!

Examples of mendacious in a Sentence

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
A choice item in the collection of mendacious stories that were circulated about Columbus after his death is this. Columbus lost himself on the way to Hispaniola, and only by virtue of letters and pilots sent by Martín Alonso did he manage to find the island and join Pinta. —Samuel Eliot Morison, Admiral of the Ocean Sea, 1942
Mildred had become great friends with her and had given her an elaborate but mendacious account of the circumstances which had brought her to the pass she was in. —W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage, 1915
The newspaper story was mendacious and hurtful.
that tabloid routinely publishes the most moronically mendacious stories about celebrities

Recent Examples of mendacious from the Web

But it could be argued that consumers are dealing with many of the same issues, from devious advertising to mendacious propaganda.

— michael j. socolow, Smithsonian, "In its Heyday, Mad Magazine Was a Lot More Than Silly Jokes," 11 May 2018
Which establishes that Trump is a mendacious philanderer.

— matthew yglesias, Vox, "Trump’s Stormy Daniels tweets show how easy he is to blackmail," 3 May 2018
There is great value in persuading light-skinned people that race is a mendacious fiction, while white privilege is an indisputable fact.

— eric levitz, Daily Intelligencer, "50 Years After His Assassination, We Are No Closer to Realizing MLK’s Most Radical Dream," 4 Apr. 2018
Another Story of the World In this appealing satire from Uruguay, a history teacher challenges the authority of his small town's mendacious and despotic military governor by teaching alternative facts.

— ben sachs, Chicago Reader, "The wall’s gonna fall at the Chicago Latino Film Festival," 5 Apr. 2018
The problem is that much of the response on the right has included nasty and mendacious personal attacks on the students, not rational arguments about the wisdom of gun control.

— jeet heer, The New Republic, "Smearing Parkland Students Is a Symptom of the Right’s Ideological Exhaustion," 28 Mar. 2018
Any lawyer who advised a compulsively mendacious client like Trump to sit with Mueller should be brought before the bar for unprofessional behavior.

— frank rich, Daily Intelligencer, "The GOP Has Become the Anti–Law Enforcement Party," 7 Feb. 2018
The purveyors of disinformation may indeed need to change their approaches to spreading mendacious or otherwise deceitful content over social media.

— dipayan ghosh and ben scott, Time, "Disinformation Is Becoming Unstoppable," 24 Jan. 2018
That continued Wednesday when CNN political hack Chris Cillizza sought to justify the network’s treatment of the story by comparing it to Trump’s mendacious voter fraud and Obama-wiretapping claims.

— will oremus, Slate Magazine, "CNN Clotheslined Itself," 5 July 2017

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'mendacious.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Origin and Etymology of mendacious

Latin mendac-, mendax — more at amend

NEW! Time Traveler

First Known Use: 1616

in the meaning defined above

See Words from the same year

mendacious Synonyms

Synonym Discussion of mendacious

dishonest, deceitful, mendacious, untruthful mean unworthy of trust or belief. dishonest implies a willful perversion of truth in order to deceive, cheat, or defraud.