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The state or quality of being correct; as, the correctness of opinions or of manners; correctness of taste; correctness in writing or speaking; the correctness of a text or copy.

ng incorrect; want of conformity to truth or to a standard; inaccuracy; inexactness; as incorrectness may in defect or in redundance.

efulness; exact conformity to truth, or to a rule or model; precision; exactness; nicety; correctness; as, the value of testimony depends on its accuracy. The professed end [of logic] is to teach men to think, to judge, and to reason, with precision and accuracy. Reid. The accuracy with which the piston fits the sides.…

Near correctness; nearly exact; not perfectly accurate; as, approximate results or values. Approximate quantities (Math.), those which are nearly, but not, equal.

The quality of being authentic or of established authority for truth and correctness.

Changed from a state of uprightness, correctness, truth, etc., to a worse state; vitiated; depraved; debased; perverted; as, corrupt language; corrupt judges. At what ease Might corrupt minds procure knaves as corrupt To swear against you. Shak.

Without fault; not defective or imperfect; free from blemish; free from incorrectness, vice, or offense; perfect; as, a faultless poem. Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see, Thinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor e'er shall be. Pope.

The art of speaking or writing with correctness or according to established usage; speech considered with regard to the rules of a grammar. The original bad grammar and bad spelling. Macaulay.

.), the faculty of the mind by which it apprehends the conditions and determines upon the correctness of inferences.

Incorrectness; want of exactness.

Propriety; correctness. [Obs.] Camden. Literary property. (Law) See under Literary. -- Property man, one who has charge of the "properties" of a theater.

To test, evince, ascertain, or verify, as the correctness of any operation or result; thus, in subtraction, if the difference between two numbers, added to the lesser number, makes a sum equal to the greater, the correctness of the subtraction is proved.

To affect reformation; to pretend to correctness. [R.]

To write hastily or carelessly, without regard to correctness or elegance; as, to scribble a letter.

eneral consent; criterion; test. The court, which used to be the standard of property and correctness of speech. Swift. A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman. Burke.

receipt showing the payment of a debt; as, the merchant's books are his vouchers for the correctness of his accounts; notes, bonds, receipts, and other writings, are used as vouchers in proving facts.