falsehoods

noun

plural of falsehood
1
as in myths
a false idea or belief the possibility of a perpetual motion machine is one falsehood that has been disproved by modern physics

Synonyms & Similar Words

Relevance

Antonyms & Near Antonyms
2
as in lies
a statement known by its maker to be untrue and made in order to deceive several falsehoods in the witness's testimony that may be grounds for perjury

Synonyms & Similar Words

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of falsehoods Yet no one was held accountable, not the Bush administration officials who orchestrated the war based on falsehoods, nor the journalists and editors who failed to do their jobs. — Literary Hub, 2 Oct. 2026 Lindsay helpfully published a list of ten resources for debunking the most persistent falsehoods related to the attacks. — Brian Stelter, CNN Money, 10 Sep. 2026 Enough is enough -- this spread of blatant and baseless falsehoods must stop. — Mike Toole, CBS News, 8 Sep. 2026 Another example of say anything, even falsehoods, to get elected. — Voice Of The People, New York Daily News, 24 Aug. 2026 Getty Images As wildfires sweep Europe and North America, falsehoods about their causes and the nature of climate change are spreading like, well, wildfire. — David Vetter, Forbes.com, 19 Aug. 2026 But of the many falsehoods told by them, there was one which quite amazed me. — Agnes Callard, The New York Review of Books, 18 Aug. 2026 In a June poll, KFF asked whether respondents believed in four vaccine falsehoods. — Katrine Wallace, STAT, 11 Aug. 2026 Among the more egregious falsehoods was the one McDonnell had told many people about her younger sister, Holly. — Cheyenne Roundtree, Rolling Stone, 11 Aug. 2026
Recent Examples of Synonyms for falsehoods
  1. myths
  2. lies
  3. delusions
  4. tales
  5. errors
  6. stories
  7. illusions
Noun
  • After decades of perspective-shifting literary retellings like Wide Sargasso Sea and The Mists of Avalon and the current trend of feminist Greek myths, Cathy is an enigma begging for some traumatic backstory to staple her flaws together.
    — Kathryn VanArendonk, Vulture, 1 Oct. 2026
  • Some myths about private capital persist for small-business owners, especially around what an investment actually means for a company.
    — Frank Williamson, Forbes.com, 1 Oct. 2026
Definition of myths
Noun
  • Aron refuses to forgive Adam for his lies about his mother, signs up for the Great War, and goes to his death.
    — Roxana Hadadi, Vulture, 2 Oct. 2026
  • Thou Shalt Not Steal, which launches on October 6, is a coming-of-age, roadtrip, moralistic odyssey about the lies people tell themselves and each other.
    — Peter White, Deadline, 2 Oct. 2026
Definition of lies
Noun
  • The Mayo Clinic defines the mental health condition as typically marked by hallucinations, delusions, depression, and mania.
    — Leigh Blickley, Entertainment Weekly, 29 Sep. 2026
  • Hill became increasingly paranoid and developed delusions that she was being surveilled.
    — Rebecca White, New York Daily News, 28 Sep. 2026
Definition of delusions
Noun
  • Fear of the wilderness and its potentially lethal native creatures is hardwired into the human brain and fueled tales of haunted forests and murderous animals throughout history.
    — Culture Critic, Los Angeles Times, 30 Sep. 2026
  • And there’s good stories, different stories in there, different tales to tell.
    — Dessi Gomez, Deadline, 30 Sep. 2026
Definition of tales
Noun
  • Georgia needed only 24 offensive plays to storm out to a 28-0 halftime lead as its defense forced and feasted on Oklahoma errors.
    — Mike Griffith, AJC.com, 27 Sep. 2026
  • However, doing so degrades the signal and leads to data-reading errors.
    — Prabhat Ranjan Mishra, Interesting Engineering, 27 Sep. 2026
Definition of errors
Noun
  • Hassan Babar, the festival’s artistic director, said such stories should not merely serve as counter-narratives.
    — Naman Ramachandran, Variety, 3 Oct. 2026
  • Across the research, historical examples, and personal stories explored in the book, the same two-sided GRP pattern appears again and again.
    — Wyles Daniel, Miami Herald, 2 Oct. 2026
Definition of stories
Noun
  • The Hering and Wundt illusions are examples of how straight lines can appear curved if intersecting lines cross them at a certain angle.
    — Emma Gometz, Scientific American, 22 Sep. 2026
  • In each case, however, modern physics has shown these assumptions to be illusions.
    — Adam Frank, NPR, 14 Sep. 2026
Definition of illusions

Browse Nearby Words

falsehood
falsehoods
falsely
See all Nearby Words

Cite this Entry

“Falsehoods.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/falsehoods. Accessed 5 Oct. 2026.

Copy Citation
Last Updated: - Updated example sentences
Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!

Popular in Grammar & Usage

See More

Do You Need a New Language Peeve?

More Commonly Mispronounced Words

Merriam-Webster’s Great Big List of Words You Love to Hate

Is it 'nerve-racking' or 'nerve-wracking'?

What's the difference between 'fascism' and 'socialism'?
See More

Popular in Wordplay

See More

7 Great Ways to Say 'Great'

The Longest Long Words List

9 Words That Sound Like Insults But Aren't

Even More Bird Names that Sound Like Insults (and Sometimes Are)

12 Lovely and Unusual Words for the Natural World
See More

Popular

See More

Do You Need a New Language Peeve?

7 Great Ways to Say 'Great'

The Longest Long Words List
See More

Games & Quizzes

See All
Play Quordle: Guess all four words in a limited number of tries. Each of your guesses must be a real 5-letter word.
Quordle Can you solve 4 words at once?
Play Blossom: Solve today's spelling word game by finding as many words as you can using just 7 letters. Longer words score more points.
Blossom Pick the best words!
Play Missing Letter: a crossword with a twist. Each of the 25 puzzle words start with a different letter of the alphabet. Which letter is missing?
The Missing Letter A daily crossword with a twist
name tags
Words Named After People Quiz Find out who’s behind "leotard," "morphine," an...
See All