What is the meaning of the word 'veritical'?
I've heard intellectuals use this word, it seems to mean truth, like it's derived from veritas- but I can't find it anywhere. Maybe I'm not spelling it correctly. Is anyone familiar with it?
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1This seems like a guessing game since you're not sure what it means and you're not sure of the spelling.– KillingTimeCommented May 16, 2023 at 17:17
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9The word is: veridical. It means truthful. I can see why you got it wrong. :)– LambieCommented May 16, 2023 at 17:17
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@Lambie - I turned your comment into a CW; feel free to add your own answer and I'll delete mine.– HeartspringCommented May 16, 2023 at 17:31
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2I’m voting to close this question because, although there is nothing wrong with its being asked, OP now has an answer (provided by Lambie in a comment) and it is very unlikely to be of interest to anyone in the future.– MarcInManhattanCommented May 16, 2023 at 17:31
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2 Answers
The word is: veridical. It means truthful. I can see why you got it wrong. :)
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I have no problem with your doing that. :) I am not a scrooge. But I fear we're going to be booted.– LambieCommented May 16, 2023 at 17:35
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2I sure do. What a pity. I thought it might be a good example - totally understandable - of t's and d's being muddled.– LambieCommented May 16, 2023 at 17:42
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I approve of the 'answer without using a normal "answer" ', but agree with the CV-ers that the question is unsuitable for ELU in the first place. ELU doesn't have a suitable vehicle for helping enquirers without encouraging unsuitable questions. Commented May 16, 2023 at 18:35
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1And, yes, I enjoyed this one. Shame to delete, delete, and delete. Commented May 16, 2023 at 23:20
The word that the OP has heard is, indeed, as Lambie has already said, veridical, rather than veritical.
In philosophical terminology, where its 'home' is, the meaning of that word is close to that of true, but not quite the same. The need for having such a word has arisen because philosophers tend to be very strict in treating truth and falsity as the properties of propositions. One can thus, in that standard philosophical terminology, say that the proposition The snow is white is true, and that the proposition The snow is green is false, but one cannot say that the visual sensation of whiteness that one has when one’s eyes are directed at the snow is true, nor that the sensation of greenness under the same circumstances (that somebody might have because of some visual illusion) would be false, because sensations are not propositions. The person who has such sensations can report them in propositions, but the sensations are distinct from the propositions in which they are reported, and that limits which adjectives can be used to characterise them.
So, if the philosophers' terminology precludes them from saying that, say, sensations, are true, how do they express the obvious quality that the sensation of whiteness when looking at the snow has, and the sensation of greenness under the same circumstances lacks? The solution was to bring the word veridical in, and say that the sensation of whiteness when looking at the snow is veridical.
In everyday communication, most people do not feel constrained to limit their use of true in the way in which its is limited in philosophical contexts. Because of that there is rarely any need to use veridical outside philosophical contexts.
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More like the sensation of color is true, but, snow isn't white. "Despite the extraordinary experience of color perception, all colors are mere illusions, in the sense that, although naive people normally think that objects appear colored because they are colored, this belief is mistaken. Neither objects nor lights are colored, but colors are the result of neural processes." Commented May 16, 2023 at 22:51