Vol. 10 · Portmanteaus ·Contemporary (2000–) ·2005
Truthiness
truth -iness
- Meaning
- The quality of seeming true without needing to be verified.
- Source words
- truth + -iness
- Coined by
- Stephen Colbert
- Year
- 2005
Background
Colbert used the word in the pilot episode of *The Colbert Report* (17 October 2005). The American Dialect Society named it 2005 Word of the Year; it passes the portmanteau test only loosely (the *-iness* is a productive suffix) but is commonly listed alongside blends.
Contemporary (2000–)
Faster coinage, faster canonisation. Brexit and podcast both reached the OED within a decade of first use — historically rapid. Social media has made visibility, not invention, the rate-limiting step.
Two words, one coinage.
Browse every portmanteau on the shelf — or cross over to the loanwords atlas.