Literally, "in wine, (there is) truth." But the sentence does not bear its meaning on its semantic sleeve. What the familiar Latin saying is used to express, by those who use it correctly, is the thought that a person under the influence of alcohol is less likely to dissemble and more likely to speak his mind and perhaps reveal something that he would not have revealed if sober.
Linguistic meaning, though not reducible to use, cannot be adequately understood apart from use.
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