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Tuesday November 10, 2009

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verisimilitude [ver-uh-suh-MIL-uh-tood; -tyood]

noun

1. The appearance of truth.
2. The quality of seeming to be true.

• The 80th anniversary of the Great Crash is upon us. This touches a nerve because we seemed to be looking into the same bottomless pit only a year ago. The chain of events, leading from a dramatic collapse in stock prices on Wall Street, beginning in late October 1929, to a Great Depression that engulfed the world economy for years, has suddenly leapt off the pages of the history books with an entirely fresh verisimilitude.
  Peter Clarke, "How to avoid a repeat of the Great Crash", FT.com, Oct 28, 2009
• Why she is the enemy of Blaine's family in the first place is one of the book's secrets, but it may be safe to say that it has something to do with the many skeletons in Ben's closet Caputo tells Ben's story with power and verisimilitude. His portrayal of the ranchers and their extended family also rings very true.
  William T Vollmann, "Borderlands", New York Times Book Review, Oct 18, 2009
• While the true origin of coffee drinking may be forever hidden among the mysteries of the purple East, shrouded as it is in legend and fable, scholars have marshaled sufficient facts to prove that the beverage was known in Ethiopia "from time immemorial," and there is much to add verisimilitude to Dufour's narrative.
  William H. Ukers (1873-1945) All About Coffee (1922)

Origin of the Word

Verisimilitude, approximately 1603, derives from French verisimilitude, from Latin verisimilitudo "likeness to truth," from verus "true" + similis "like, similar."