true – English noun declension

English noun forms of true

Noun: true
Singulartrue
Pluraltrues

Sample Sentences

  • Some toolmakers are very careless when drilling the first hole through work that is to be bored, claiming that if the drilled hole comes out of true somewhat it can be brought true with the boring tool. [1904, Lester Gray French, Machinery, volume 10:]
  • She clapped her hands happily, and he thought how pretty she was really, that is, the upper part of her face—from the bridge of the nose down she was somewhat out of true. [1922, F[rancis] Scott Fitzgerald, “(please specify the page)”, in Tales of the Jazz Age, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC:]
  • The crate shifted on its pallet, out of sync now. As the lift withdrew, the crate skidded with it, dragged by friction and gravity, skewing farther and farther from true. [1988, Lois McMaster Bujold, Falling Free, Baen Publishing,, →ISBN, page 96:]
  • The strength and number of blows depends on how far out of true the shafts are. [1994, Bruce Palmer, How to Restore Your Harley-Davidson:]

Etymology

1. From Middle English treowe, trew, trewe, triwe, true, trwe, from Old English trēowe, trīewe (“faithful, true”), from Proto-Germanic *triwwiz (“faithful, true”), from pre-Germanic *drewh₂yos, from Proto-Indo-European *drewH- (“firm, hard, true”).
2. Cognates
3. Cognate with Saterland Frisian trjou (“honest”), Alemannic German trüüw (“loyal”), Dutch trouw (“loyal, true”), German treu (“loyal, true”), Luxembourgish trei (“loyal”), Danish tryg (“safe, secure”), Faroese and Icelandic tryggur (“faithful, loyal; safe”), Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish trygg (“safe, secure”), Gothic 𐍄𐍂𐌹𐌲𐌲𐍅𐍃 (triggws, “true; faithful, loyal”); also Irish dearbh (“sure”), Old Prussian druwis (“faith”), Ancient Greek δροόν (droón, “firm”)), extension of *dóru (“tree”) (possibly also Proto-Slavic *sъdorvъ (“healthy”) from the same root). More at tree. For the semantic development, compare Latin robustus (“tough”) from robur (“red oak”). See: Middle English Nouns 'treowe', Old English Nouns 'trēowe', Dutch Nouns 'trouw', Latin Nouns 'robustus'.