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PlainSpell

true

/tɹuː/adjective, adverb, noun, verb

true is spelled T-R-U-E: 4 letters and one syllable. It appears 251 times per million words in written English, the 387th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As an adjective, true means “Conforming to the actual state of reality or fact; factually correct” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).

How many letters and syllables are in true?

Letters4: T-R-U-E
Syllables1 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing251 times per million words; the 387th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search
Same letters

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.

How common is true?

True appears 251 times per million words in written English, the 387th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce true?

  • /tɹuː/
  • [t̠ɹ̠̊˔ʷu̠ː]
  • /tɹjuː/

True has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-uk-true.ogg, En-us-true.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

What rhymes with true?

No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as true.

Spelled with the same letters in another order: rute.

Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).

Forms of true

  • truer comparative
  • more true comparative
  • truest superlative
  • most true superlative
  • tru
  • tr00
  • trues present, singular, he/she/it, plural
  • trueing participle, present
  • truing participle, present
  • trued participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does true mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

adjective

  1. 1

    Conforming to the actual state of reality or fact; factually correct.

    This is a true story.

  2. 2

    As an ellipsis of "(while) it is true (that)", used to start a sentence

    True, I have only read part of the book, but I like it so far.

  3. 3

    Conforming to a rule or pattern; exact; accurate.

    a true copy

  4. 4

    Of the state in Boolean logic that indicates an affirmative or positive result.

    "A and B" is true if and only if "A" is true and "B" is true.

  5. 5

    Loyal, faithful.

    He’s turned out to be a true friend.

  6. 6

    Genuine; legitimate; valid; sensu stricto.

    The true king has returned!

  7. 7

    Used in the designation of group of species, or sometimes a single species, to indicate that it belongs to the clade its common name (which may be more broadly scoped in common speech) is restricted to in technical speech, or to distinguish it from a similar species, the latter of which may be called false.

    true sparrows (Passer)

  8. 8

    Accurate; following a path toward the target.

adverb

  1. 1

    Accurately; in alignment.

    This gun shoots true.

  2. 2

    archaicTruthfully.

noun

  1. 1

    The state of being in alignment.

  2. 2

    obsoleteTruth.

  3. 3

    obsoleteA pledge or truce.

verb

  1. 1

    To straighten (something that is supposed to be straight).

    He trued the spokes of the bicycle wheel.

  2. 2

    To make even, level, symmetrical, or accurate, align; adjust (often followed by up).

    We spent all night truing up the report.

adjective

as TRUE
  1. 1

    one of two states of a Boolean variable; logic 1.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you abbreviate true?

Wiktionary records 2 abbreviations of true: T, tru.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

True in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchvrai (concurring with a given set of facts), véritable (loyal, faithful), centrer (straighten)
Germanwahr, echt, richtig, zutreffend, stimmig, wahrheitsgemäß (concurring with a given set of facts)
Portugueseverdadeiro (concurring with a given set of facts), endireitar (straighten), autêntico, legítimo (genuine, legitimate)
Spanishcierto, verdadero, verídico, verífico, vero (concurring with a given set of facts)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does true come from?

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”).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after true