TRUE TOGETHER

Verisimilitude, one of my favorite words, describes the quality of something to appear to be true (note that it doesn't necessarily have to be). This was borrowed in the seventeenth century from the same word in French, which was in turn was borrowed in the mid-sixteenth century from Latin verisimilitudo, which also had the very specific meaning of "likeness to truth". The root here is the neuter verus, which meant "true" or "real" (a component in veracity, very, verify, and voir dire). This, through Proto-Italic weros, derives from Proto-Indo-European weh, also "true". The second component of verisimilitude is similitudo, which meant "resemblance" and comes from similis, which makes up words like resemble, similar, facsimile, simulate, and assemble. This hails from Proto-Indo-European sem​, meaning "together" or "one"