PROVE

verb (~d; ~d or ~n; proving) see: pro- Date: 13th century transitive verb to learn or find out by experience, 2. to test the truth, validity, or genuineness of , to test the worth or quality of, to check the correctness of (as an arithmetic result), 3. to establish the existence, truth, or validity of (as by evidence or logic) , to demonstrate as having a particular quality or worth , to show (oneself) to be worthy or capable , intransitive verb to turn out especially after trial or test , provable adjective provableness noun provably adverb ~r noun Usage: The past participle ~n, originally the past participle of preve, a Middle English variant of ~ that survived in Scotland, has gradually worked its way into standard English over the past three and a half centuries. It seems to have first become established in legal use and to have come only slowly into literary use. Tennyson was one of its earliest frequent users, probably for metrical reasons. It was disap~d by 19th century grammarians, one of whom included it in a list of “words that are not words.” Surveys made some 50 or 60 years ago indicated that ~d was about four times as frequent as ~n. But our evidence from the last 30 or 35 years shows this no longer to be the case. As a past participle ~n is now about as frequent as ~d in all contexts. As an attributive adjective ~n is much more common than ~d.