PROVE • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Prove

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/pruv/ Listen

verb

Prove v. t. (past proved; past part. proven; pres. part. proving)

1.

To try or to ascertain by an experiment, or by a test or standard; to test; as, to prove the strength of gunpowder or of ordnance; to prove the contents of a vessel by a standard measure. "Thou hast proved mine heart."

2.

To evince, establish, or ascertain, as truth, reality, or fact, by argument, testimony, or other evidence. "They have inferred much from slender premises, and conjectured when they could not prove."

3.

To ascertain or establish the genuineness or validity of; to verify; as, to prove a will.

4.

To gain experience of the good or evil of; to know by trial; to experience; to suffer. "Where she, captived long, great woes did prove."

5.

(Arith.) To test, evince, ascertain, or verify, as the correctness of any operation or result; thus, in subtraction, if the difference between two numbers, added to the lesser number, makes a sum equal to the greater, the correctness of the subtraction is proved.

6.

(Printing) To take a trial impression of; to take a proof of; as, to prove a page.

Synonyms: To try; verify; justify; confirm; establish; evince; manifest; show; demonstrate.

Prove v. i. (past proved; past part. proven; pres. part. proving)

1.

To make trial; to essay.

2.

To be found by experience, trial, or result; to turn out to be; as, a medicine proves salutary; the report proves false. "The case proves mortal." "So life a winter's morn may prove."

3.

To succeed; to turn out as expected. (Obs.) "The experiment proved not."

See images of 'Prove'

Etymology of 'Prove'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Prove" Quotes from Famous Books

... missed sooner at the bank. Luke longed to have Miss Sprague go, that he might confer with his mother on this subject. He had been told to keep the possession of the box secret, and therefore he didn't wish to reveal the fact that he had it unless it should prove ...

— Struggling Upward - or Luke Larkin's Luck • Horatio Alger

... the aid of any extraordinary power, everywhere receives voluntary obedience.' It was afterwards stated by Lord George Bentinck that Peel had changed his opinions about Catholic emancipation in 1825, and had communicated this change to Lord Liverpool. The letters before us, however, conclusively prove that if Peel was shaken, it was not about the merits of emancipation, but about the practicability of resisting it. Having been four times defeated in the Commons on the Catholic question, he tendered his resignation, and Lord Liverpool at once declared ...

— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky

... was. I tried to please him all I could. When he scolded me I answered him softly. I prayed for him and for all my relatives every day. I asked the Lord to send the Holy Spirit to them, that they might prove what was good. Two or three months afterward, I found my father and relatives changed a great deal. They seemed to like Christianity more than ...

— The American Missionary - Volume 42, No. 3, March 1888 • Various

... postings included immediate transliterations of Boris Yeltsin's decrees condemning the coup and eyewitness reports of the demonstrations in Moscow's streets. In those hours, years of speculation that totalitarianism would prove unable to maintain its grip on politically-loaded information in the age of computer networking were proved devastatingly accurate — and the original kremvax joke became a reality as Yeltsin and the new Russian ...

— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0

... again urged, and this time there was silence, save for his own strong voice. "We don't want to prove ourselves to be as despicable as the enemy are. Bring 'em up to the street, but don't be brutal about it. We'll look the scoundrels over so that we'll know them to-morrow. Come along. Clear the ...

— The Young Engineers in Arizona - Laying Tracks on the Man-killer Quicksand • H. Irving Hancock

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