tell the truth

English

Pronunciation

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Verb

tell the truth (third-person singular simple present tells the truth, present participle telling the truth, simple past and past participle told the truth)

1. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see tell,‎ truth.
   • 2022 September 26, “Putin grants Russian citizenship to U.S. whistleblower Snowden”, in Mark Trevelyan, editor, Reuters‎^[1], archived from the original on 26 September 2022, Europe:

     That year a U.S. appeals court found the program Snowden had exposed was unlawful and that the U.S. intelligence leaders who publicly defended it were not telling the truth.

Translations

to tell the truth

• Arabic: صَدَقَ (ṣadaqa)
• Hungarian: igazat mond

Phrase

tell the truth

1. (idiomatic, informal) Used to positively assert the frank honesty of an associated statement of set of statements; equivalent to "to tell the truth".
   • 1991, Mike Sirota, Bicycling Through Space and Time:

     Then it sneezed. Considering what it was smelling, that was no surprise. Tell the truth, I'd gotten so used to the jof jof dung that I didn't notice it anymore.

Usage notes

• Used bracketed by punctuation, especially commas, dashes, or parentheses.
• Less intimate than tell you the truth.

Synonyms

• (asserting frank honesty of statement): frankly, honestly, tell you the truth

Related terms

• tell the truth and shame the devil
• tell you the truth

Translations

asserting the frank honesty of an associated statement

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 老實說／老实说 (zh) (lǎoshíshuō)

• Finnish: totta puhuen
• French: pour être honnête
• Greek:

  Ancient: ἀληθεύω (alētheúō)

• Hungarian: az igazat megvallva, őszintén szólva (hu), igazság szerint, az az igazság, hogy
• Russian: че́стно говоря́ (ru) (čéstno govorjá)
• Spanish: decir la verdad
• Swedish: ärligt talat