false – English adjective declension

English adjective forms of false

Adjective: false

Comparison Forms

Synthetic

Comparativefalser
Superlativefalsest

Perifrastic

Sample Sentences

  • Also the rule of false position, with dyuers examples not onely vulgar, but some appertaynyng to the rule of Algeber. [1551, James A.H. Murray, editor, A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles: Founded Mainly on the Materials Collected by the Philological Society, volume 1, Oxford: Clarendon Press, published 1888, Part 1, page 217, column 2:]
  • false legislation, false punishment
  • false teeth
  • At her invitation he outlined for her the succeeding chapters with terse military accuracy; and what she liked best and best understood was avoidance of that false modesty which condescends, turning technicality into pabulum. [1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, “Silverside”, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC, page 300:]
  • a false witness
  • a false friend, lover, or subject;  false to promises
  • I to my ſelf was falſe, e’re thou to me,[…] [1671, John Milton, “Samson Agonistes, […].”, in Paradise Regain’d. A Poem. In IV Books. To which is Added, Samson Agonistes, London: […] J[ohn] M[acock] for John Starkey […], →OCLC, page 52, line 25:]
  • She had been in Baton Rouge but a little over two weeks, when suddenly his letters ceased. She awaited in anxious suspense a whole week — no letter. Another week dragged heavily, and her anxiety became a terrible fear. Was he sick and unable to write — was he dead — or, still more terrible thought, had he proved false? [1861, E. J. Guerin, Mountain Charley, page 7:]
  • a false conclusion;  a false construction in grammar
  • So downe he fell, as an huge rockie clift, / Whoſe falſe foundacion waues haue waſht away,[…] [1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto XI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 54, page 170:]
  • false scorpion (an arachnid)
  • false killer whale (a dolphin)
  • false powderpost beetles (members of Bostrichidae not in Lyctinae)

Adjectives inflected like false

scarce, smoove, sombre, wholsome, sheene, bolshie, baroque, concrete, seveare, comf'table, shrewde, 'umble, grislie, unsubtle, ungentle, indiscrete, couthie, chavvie, lissome, cutesie, etc. (List truncated at 20 adjectives)

Etymology

1. From Middle English false, fals, from Old English fals (“false; counterfeit; fraudulent; wrong; mistaken”), from Latin falsus (“counterfeit, false; falsehood”), perfect passive participle of fallō (“deceive”). Reinforced in Middle English by Anglo-Norman and Old French fals, faus. Compare Scots fals, false, Saterland Frisian falsk, German falsch, Dutch vals, Swedish and Danish falsk; all from Latin falsus. Displaced native Middle English les, lese, from Old English lēas (“false”); See lease, leasing. Doublet of faux.
2. The verb is from Middle English falsen, falsien, from Old French falser, from Latin falsō (“falsify”), itself also from falsus; compare French fausser (“to falsify, to distort”). See: German Adjectives 'falsch', Dutch Adjectives 'vals'.