"true the vote"

Victor Steinbok aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM
Tue Mar 29 16:04:48 UTC 2011


It certainly has wheels.

> *2.* To make true, as a piece of mechanism or the like; to place,
> adjust, or shape accurately; to give the precise required form or
> position to; to make accurately or perfectly straight, level, round,
> smooth, sharp, etc. as required. Often with /up/.

Although OED only has 1841-1888, the most common usage today is removing
the wobble from bicycle rims, although I've also heard it specialized
for car wheels as well--and /never/ with "up". Same goes for
"truing/trueing" (1847-1891).

The "make true" gloss only has one citation from 1647.

     VS-)

On 3/29/2011 3:42 AM, Ben Zimmer wrote:
> ... Worth monitoring to see if this verb has legs.

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