mxcatmoon: Word Cloud (Word Cloud)
My Fannish Corner ([personal profile] mxcatmoon) wrote in [community profile] vocab_drabbles2024-08-12 04:46 am

#116 - Verisimilar

This week's word is

Verisimilar



From Merriam-Webster

veri·​sim·​i·​lar

adjective
1: having the appearance of truth: probable
2: depicting realism (as in art or literature)

From its roots, verisimilitude means basically "similarity to the truth." Most fiction writers and filmmakers aim at some kind of verisimilitude to give their stories an air of reality. They need not show something actually true, or even very common, but simply something believable. A mass of good details in a play, novel, painting, or film may add verisimilitude. A spy novel without some verisimilitude won't interest many readers, but a fantastical novel may not even attempt to seem true to life.

"The novel's degree of verisimilitude is compromised by 18th-century characters who speak in very 21st-century English."