proof

English

/pɹuːf/, /pɹuf/, /pɹʉːf/

noun
Definitions
  • (countable) An effort, process, or operation designed to establish or discover a fact or truth; an act of testing; a test; a trial.
  • (uncountable) The degree of evidence which convinces the mind of any truth or fact, and produces belief; a test by facts or arguments which induce, or tend to induce, certainty of the judgment; conclusive evidence; demonstration.
  • The quality or state of having been proved or tried; firmness or hardness which resists impression, or does not yield to force; impenetrability of physical bodies.
  • (obsolete) Experience of something.
  • (uncountable) Firmness of mind; stability not to be shaken.
  • (countable) A proof sheet; a trial impression, as from type, taken for correction or examination.
  • (countable) A sequence of statements consisting of axioms, assumptions, statements already demonstrated in another proof, and statements that logically follow from previous statements in the sequence, and which concludes with a statement that is the object of the proof.
  • (countable) A process for testing the accuracy of an operation performed. Compare prove, transitive verb, 5.
  • (obsolete) Armour of excellent or tried quality, and deemed impenetrable; properly, armour of proof.
  • (US) A measure of the alcohol content of liquor. Originally, in Britain, 100 proof was defined as 57.1% by volume (no longer used). In the US, 100 proof means that the alcohol content is 50% of the total volume of the liquid; thus, absolute alcohol would be 200 proof.

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English proof borrowed from Old French prove derived from Latin proba, probare (prove, test, examine) root from Proto-Indo-European *bʰuH- (grow, become, be, appear, come into being, rise up, exist, thrive, curve, happen, live, bend, swell, dwell, prosper).

Origin

Proto-Indo-European

*bʰuH-

Gloss

grow, become, be, appear, come into being, rise up, exist, thrive, curve, happen, live, bend, swell, dwell, prosper

Concept
Semantic Field

Spatial relations

Ontological Category

Action/Process

Kanji

Emoji
🌱 💗 🪴

Timeline

Distribution of cognates by language

Geogrpahic distribution of cognates

Cognates and derived terms