nugget of truth

nugget of truth (plural nuggets of truth)

1. (idiomatic) A small amount of truth in a generally untrue statement.
   • 1989, Walter A. Goffart, Rome's Fall and After‎, page 59:

     Even in its moderate form, this argument presupposes that factual elements can be plucked out of panegyric as nuggets of truth isolated from the dross of empty verbiage.

   • 2003, Henry Cloud, Making Small Groups Work: What Every Small Group Leader Needs to Know‎, page 286:

     This book identifies twelve teachings that sound plausible because they each contain a nugget of truth.

   • 2008 January, “Clinton's Hispanic edge over Obama”, in Chicago Tribune‎:

     Unfortunately, there is a nugget of truth to the notion of black and Hispanic tensions but, like politics, the friction tends to be very local.