credulous

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English

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Etymology

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Originated in 1576, borrowed from Latin crēdulus (that easily believes a thing, credulous), from crēdō (to believe).

Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key): /ˈkɹɛd͡ʒələs/, /ˈkɹɛdjələs/

Adjective

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credulous (comparative more credulous, superlative most credulous)

  1. Excessively ready to believe things; gullible.
    Synonyms: naive, unworldly; see also Thesaurus:gullible
  2. Believed too readily.
    • c. 1604–1626, doubtfully attributed to Francis Beaumont, John Fletcher, “The Faithful Friends”, in Henry [William] Weber, editor, The Works of Beaumont and Fletcher, in Fourteen Volumes: [], volume I, Edinburgh: [] F[rancis] C[harles] and J[ohn] Rivington;  [], published 1812, →OCLC, Act IV, scene i, page 99:
      'Twas he possess'd me with your credulous death
    • 1834, William Swainson, A Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural History (Cabinet Cyclopedia), pages 8–9:
      The powerful mind of Aristotle, which led him to reject with disdain the credulous tales and fabulous stories of the age, can nowhere be traced in the writings of Pliny, whose works, on the contrary, abound in fables and in prodigies, at once manifesting that weakness of mind inseparable from credulity, or that disinclination to investigate truth, which is the sure mark of a secondary order of intellect.
    • 2020, David Spiegelhalter, “Should We Trust Algorithms?”, in Harvard Data Science Review, volume 2, number 1, →DOI, page 2:
      The media (and politicians) are replete with credulous stories about machine learning and AI, but these stories are often based on commercial claims.

Derived terms

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Translations

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References

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