English

Verb

falsify ‎(third-person singular simple present falsifies, present participle falsifying, simple past and past participle falsified)

1. (transitive) To alter so as to make false; to make incorrect.

   to falsify a record or document

   • Spenser

     The Irish bards use to forge and falsify everything as they list, to please or displease any man.

2. (transitive) To misrepresent.
3. (transitive) To prove to be false.
   • Shakespeare

     By how much better than my word I am, / By so much shall I falsify men's hope.

   • Addison

     Jews and Pagans united all their endeavors, under Julian the apostate, to baffle and falsify the prediction.

4. (transitive) To counterfeit; to forge.

   to falsify coin

5. (transitive, finance) To show, in accounting, (an item of charge inserted in an account) to be wrong.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Story to this entry?)

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Daniell to this entry?)

6. (transitive, obsolete) To baffle or escape.
   • Samuel Butler

     For disputants (as swordsmen use to fence / With blunted foyles) engage with blunted sense; / And as th' are wont to falsify a blow, / Use nothing else to pass upon a foe […]

7. (transitive, obsolete) To violate; to break by falsehood.

   to falsify one's faith or word

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Sir Philip Sidney to this entry?)

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

External links

• falsify in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
• falsify in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911