Is there a word for when a statement is technically true but misleading?


The statement that inspired the question was "Newton was wrong [about the laws that govern movement]". Although some exceptions have been found to Newton's laws since he discovered them and thus the statement is true, the laws are still taught and used, making the statement misleading.


Another example would be "I've never lost at chess" when the speaker has never played a game of chess.



Answer



The first word that comes to mind is half-truth, which Merriam-Webster describes as:



a statement that is only partly true and that is intended to deceive people



The examples you give certainly contain truth, but not the complete truth. By leaving out some relevant part of the truth, the statements become indeed deceiving.


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