mendacity

noun

men·​dac·​i·​ty men-ˈda-sə-tē 

plural mendacities

1

: the quality or state of being mendacious

… to blow the whistle on mendacity and hypocrisy.

—Geoffrey Wolff

2

: lie

mendacities of the singer's manager

Synonyms of mendacity

• lie
• tale
• story

Examples of mendacity in a Sentence

highly fictionalized “memoirs” in which the facts were few and the mendacities many

you need to overcome this deplorable mendacity, or no one will ever believe anything you say

Recent Examples on the Web

As far back as two centuries ago, visitors to Russia complained about its people’s chronic mendacity, undiminished among its leadership today. —Max Hastings, Twin Cities, 5 Apr. 2026

As far back as two centuries ago, visitors to Russia complained about its people’s chronic mendacity, undiminished among its leadership today. —Max Hastings, Mercury News, 4 Apr. 2026

Other contributing factors often include mendacity, obfuscation, obsession, moral bankruptcy, naïveté, misplaced loyalty or trust, and lapse of good judgment. —Encyclopedia Britannica, 2 Apr. 2026

The method of the madness is plain: Goncharov claims to have been plagiarized, with ever greater cunning and mendacity, by Ivan Turgenev, who once had been his friend. —Anthony Lane, New Yorker, 22 Mar. 2026

Word History

First Known Use

circa 1540, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for mendacity

• audacity
• capacity
• loquacity
• opacity
• pugnacity
• rapacity
• sagacity
• tenacity
• veracity
• vivacity
• voracity
• incapacity