false light

false light noun: a point of view resulting in a misleading or inaccurate representation of a person, situation, or fact.

Noun

false light (countable and uncountable, plural false lights)

(countable, idiomatic) A point of view resulting in a misleading or inaccurate representation of a person, situation, or fact.
- To the untrue man, the whole universe is false—it is impalpable—it shrinks to nothing within his grasp. And he himself in so far as he shows himself in a false light, becomes a shadow.1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne, chapter 11, in The Scarlet Letter
- It was not I, but these things working in me—on my brain, making me see things in a false light!1883, George MacDonald, chapter 58, in Donal Grant
(uncountable) A cause of action arising under the common law where a person is portrayed in a way which, while not technically false, is misleading and likely to cause embarrassment to that person.
- Dickinson’s lawsuit filed Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court seeks unspecified damages on defamation, false light and intentional infliction of emotional distress claims.2015 May 20, “Model Janice Dickinson Sues Bill Cosby For Defamation”, in CBS Los Angeles, retrieved 22 May 2015

போலி விளக்கு

Some of the charges against them . . . are due merely to the false light in which they are regarded.1920, Gilbert Keith Chesterton, chapter 13, in The New Jerusalem:
Don Lehe, a Republican state representative from a rural district in Indiana, said online videos can cast farmers in a false light and give them little opportunity to correct the record.2013 April 6, Richard A. Oppel Jr, “Taping of Farm Cruelty Is Becoming the Crime”, in New York Times, retrieved 22 May 2015:

plural	false lights

What does false light mean?: False light means a point of view resulting in a misleading or inaccurate representation of a person, situation, or fact.
What is false light in Tamil?: False light in Tamil is போலி விளக்கு. See False light meaning in Tamil.
How do you use false light in a sentence?: Some of the charges against them . . . are due merely to the false light in which they are regarded.
What part of speech is false light?: False light is a noun.
What is the plural of false light?: The plural of false light is false lights.

Adapted from Wiktionary: false light (page history and authors); false light (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-false light.ogg.

Cite this entry: “false light.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/false_light. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.