plausibility
English
editEtymology
editBorrowed from New Latin plausibilitās.
Noun
editplausibility (countable and uncountable, plural plausibilities)
- (obsolete) The quality of deserving applause, praiseworthiness; something worthy of praise. [16th–17th c.]
- 1668, David Lloyd, Memories of the Lives, Actions, Sufferings & Deaths of Those Noble, Reverend, and Excellent Personages that Suffered […] for the Protestant Religion:
- integrity, fidelity, and other gracious plausibilities
- (now rare) The appearance of truth, especially when deceptive; speciousness. [from 17th c.]
- 1790, Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Men[1]:
- Plausibility, I know, can only be unmasked by shewing the absurdities it glosses over, and the simple truths it involves with specious errors.
- A plausible statement, argument etc. [from 17th c.]
- 1869, Robert Browning, “XI. Guido.”, in The Ring and the Book. […], volume IV, London: Smith, Elder and Co., →OCLC, page 164, lines 1680–1681 and 1685–1687:
- She too must shimmer through the gloom o' the grave, / Come and confront me— […] / Striking me dumb, and helping her to speak, / Tell her own story her own way, and turn / My plausibility to nothingness!
- (now in more positive sense) The fact of being believable; believability, credibility. [from 18th c.]
- 2014 October 14, David Malcolm, “The Great War Re-Remembered: Allohistory and Allohistorical Fiction”, in Martin Löschnigg, Marzena Sokolowska-Paryz, editors, The Great War in Post-Memory Literature and Film[2], Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG., →ISBN, page 173:
- The question of the plausibility of the counter-factual is seen as key in all three discussions of allohistorical fiction (as it is in Demandt's and Ferguson's examinations of allohistory) (cf. Rodiek 25–26; Ritter 15–16; Helbig 32).
Derived terms
editTranslations
editpraiseworthiness — see praiseworthiness
speciousness
plausible statement or argument
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believability
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References
edit- “plausibility”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
- “plausibility”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.