authentic
- 1Genuine, and truly originating from the source or maker that is claimed.
Experts verified that the signature on the will was authentic.
The restaurant serves authentic regional dishes prepared the traditional way.
Similargenuine, real, original, legitimate, true
Oppositefake, counterfeit, forged, spurious
- 2In agreement with reality, and therefore worthy of trust, reliance, or belief.
Historians regard the soldier's diary as an authentic record of the siege.
Her authentic description of the crash convinced the jury.
Similarreliable, accurate, trustworthy, credible, faithful
Oppositeunreliable, inaccurate, false, untrustworthy
Note
Here the question is whether a thing can be believed, not where it came from. An authentic portrait is a true likeness, and authentic information is accurate. That separates it from the "genuine origin" meaning: a signature is authentic because of who made it, while a report is authentic because what it says matches the facts. Said of a writer, it means one whose account can be relied on.
- 3Describing a cadence in which the dominant chord moves directly to the tonic chord.
The composer chose an authentic cadence to bring the movement to a firm close.
Each phrase resolves through an authentic cadence back into the home key.
Similarperfect
Oppositeplagal
Note
The cadence of tonal music that closes most firmly: the dominant chord moves straight to the tonic. Composers use it at the ends of phrases and movements when the music should sound finished. It appears almost always in the fixed phrase authentic cadence. Keep it distinct from the modal meaning, which describes a scale's range rather than a chord progression.
- 4Designating a mode in which the final serves as the lowest note of the scale.
Medieval theorists classified each chant melody as either an authentic mode or a plagal one.
The piece is set in an authentic mode, rising from the final upward.
Oppositeplagal
Note
In the church modes, the word marks a range that climbs upward from the final, the note a melody comes to rest on. Its counterpart is plagal, the term for modes whose range reaches below the final. The two terms work as a pair, so a mode is classed as one or the other. In this sense the word has nothing to do with genuineness.
Less common meaning
- 5Vested with recognized authority, and therefore carrying the weight to command obedience and belief.
Note
This sense stays closest to the word's Greek root, authentēs, "perpetrator, absolute ruler": what a ruler says carries authority. Milton, in Of Prelatical Episcopacy (1641), asks why his opponents cite Ignatius "as authentick" for episcopacy, meaning as an authority. The sense is obsolete, so modern writers should use authoritative. The same Greek word also gave English its doublet effendi.
Practice
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Origin
The word came into Middle English as authentik from Old French autentique, which came from Latin authenticus. That came from Ancient Greek authentikós ("authentic, genuine"), from authéntēs ("perpetrator, murderer, absolute ruler"). It is a doublet of effendi.