falsehood (n.)
- canard
- deceit
- dishonesty
- dissimulation
- distortion
- erroneousness
- error
- exaggeration
- fabrication
- fakery
- fallaciousness
- fallacy
- falseness
- falsity
- farrago
- feigning
- fib
- fibbing
- fiction
- flam
- flimflam
- fraud
- half-truth
- lie
- lying
- mendacity
- misrepresentation
- misstatement
- pretense
- prevarication
- sham
- story
- tale
- taradiddle
- untruth
- untruthfulness
- yarn
Though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do ingloriously, by licensing and prohibiting, to misdoubt her strength. Let her and Falsehood grapple: who ever knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter?
Had I a heart for falsehood framed,
I ne'er could injure you.
A goodly apple rotten at the heart:
O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!
Him thus intent Ithuriel with his spear
Touch'd lightly; for no falsehood can endure
Touch of celestial temper.
Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side;
Some great cause, God's new Messiah offering each the bloom or blight,
Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right;
And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and that light.
That practis'd falsehood under saintly shew,
Deep malice to conceal, couch'd with revenge.
But Faith, fanatic Faith, once wedded fast
To some dear falsehood, hugs it to the last.
