What is described as the degree of closeness to a true value in measurements?

The degree of closeness to a true value in measurements is referred to as accuracy. Accuracy indicates how close a measured value is to the actual or true value of the quantity being measured. For example, if you were measuring the length of a table and the actual length is 2 meters, an accurate measurement would be very close to 2 meters, such as 1.98 meters or 2.01 meters.

In contrast, other terms like precision refer to the repeatability or consistency of measurements, where measurements might cluster closely together but be far from the true value. Reliability pertains to the consistency of results over time, while consistency generally refers to the repetition of results under unchanged conditions. Thus, accuracy is the key measure when describing the correctness of a measurement relative to the true value.