in vino veritas


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in vino veritas

A Latin phrase meaning "in wine, there is truth," alluding to how people are said to be more truthful or open when they are intoxicated. Whenever I need to get the truth out of someone, I just open a bottle of wine—in vino veritas, it works every time!

in vino veritas

Drunks speak the truth. This Latin expression, literally “In wine [is] truth,” was already used by the ancient Greeks and probably survived so long in the Latin form because Erasmus in his widely circulated Adagia so rendered it. There are versions in numerous languages. The cliché is heard less often nowadays, but as the study of Latin is slowly reviving it may surface more often.
References in periodicals archive ?
In Vino Veritas, by Gabor Vas and Tivadar Meszaros.
With this background, I accepted without hesitation the invitation to review In Vino Veritas (In Wine There Is Truth), a collection of Hungarian revelling songs published by Edito Musica Budapest.
In Vino Veritas. (Voice)
If indeed in vino veritas, then new wines must bear new truths.
"The return of the cadavre exquis." (The Drawing Center, New York, New York)
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