truism n : an obvious truth

Truism \Tru"ism\, n. [From True.] An undoubted or self-evident truth; a statement which is pliantly true; a proposition needing no proof or argument; -- opposed to falsism. Trifling truisms clothed in great, swelling words. --J. P. Smith.

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A truism is a claim that is so obvious or self-evident as to be hardly worth mentioning, except as a reminder or as a rhetorical or literary device.

In philosophy, a sentence which asserts incomplete truth conditions for a proposition may be regarded as a truism. An example of such a sentence would be: "Under appropriate conditions, the sun rises." Without contextual support — a statement of what those appropriate conditions are — the sentence is true but incontestable. A statement which is true by definition ("All cats are mammals.") would also be considered a truism. This is quite similar to a tautology in which the conclusion of a statement is essentially equivalent to its premise, a statement that is "true by virtue of its logical form alone".

The word may be used to disguise the fact that a proposition is really just an opinion, especially in rhetoric. A saying about people or an accepted truth about life in general is also a truism.

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