the moment of truth

The moment or point at which some critical and decisive event, action, or test will occur. It's the moment of truth—this letter will tell me whether I got into my dream school or not. We've been working on a prototype of this device for months. Now comes the moment of truth, when we test it in a real-world environment. As we've seen, polls can be misleading, so the real moment of truth will come when the votes are tallied.

Fig. the point at which someone has to face the reality of a situation. The moment of truth is here. Turn over your exam papers and begin. Now for the moment of truth when we find out whether we have got planning permission or not.

A critical or decisive time, at which one is put to the ultimate test, as in Now that all the bills are in, we've come to the moment of truth-can we afford to live here or not? This expression, a translation of the Spanish el momento de la verdad, signifies the point in a bullfight when the matador makes the kill. It was first used in English in Ernest Hemingway's story Death in the Afternoon (1932).

COMMON The moment of truth is the time when you learn the true facts of a situation or make an important decision. I got onto the bathroom scales. Now came the moment of truth. That was the moment of truth for me. I either walked through that door then or I never walked through it.

The critical instant, at which one is put to the ultimate test. The term is a translation of the Spanish el momento de la verdad, which signifies the time in a bullfight in which the matador is about to kill the bull. It was first described in English by Ernest Hemingway in his story Death in the Afternoon, and subsequently was transferred to other critical outcomes. The final calculation in making out one’s income tax return, for example, could be described as one’s moment of truth.

A crucial test. Unless a matador is injured or loses his nerve before the end of a bullfight, the climax comes when he reaches over the horns to plunge his sword behind the animal's neck. The matador is then at his most vulnerable, since the bull need only raise its head to gore the man. This “moment of truth” when a matador reveals whether he has sufficient courage is a literal translation of the Spanish phrase for that point in time. By extension, any situation in which a person is called on to show “the right stuff ” can be called the moment of truth.