proven

See also: provén and prøven

English

Etymology

From Scottish English, as past participle of preve, a Middle English variant of prove – compare woven (from weave) and cloven (from cleave), both of which feature -eve → -oven. Preve died out in England, but survived in Scotland, where proven developed, initially in a legal context, as in “The jury ruled that the charges were not proven.” See usage notes for historical usage patterns.

Earlier, from Late Latin probō (“test, try, examine, approve, show to be good or fit, prove”, verb), from Latin probus (“good, worthy, excellent”), from Proto-Indo-European *pro-bʰuH-s (“being in front, prominent”), from *pro-, *per- (“toward”) + *bʰuH- (“to be”).

Morphologically prove +‎ -n.

Pronunciation

• enPR: pro͞oʹvən, prōʹvən, IPA^(key): /ˈpɹuːvən/, /ˈpɹəʊvən/
  • enPR: prōʹvən, IPA^(key): /ˈpɹoːvən/
• enPR: pro͞oʹvən, IPA^(key): /ˈpɹuvən/
• Rhymes: -uːvən, -əʊvən
• Hyphenation: prov‧en

Adjective

proven (comparative more proven, superlative most proven)

1. Having been proved; having proved its value or truth.

   It's a proven fact that morphine is a more effective painkiller than acetaminophen is.

   Mass lexical comparison is not a proven method for demonstrating relationships between languages.

Antonyms

• unproven
• disproven

Translations

having been proved

• Bengali: প্রমাণিত (promanito)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: please add this translation if you can

• Finnish: todennettu (fi), todistettu (fi)
• French: prouvé (fr)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Irish: dearfa
• Italian: provato (it), dimostrato (it), comprovato (it)
• Polish: dowiedziony, udowodniony
• Portuguese: provado (pt) m
• Russian: дока́занный (ru) (dokázannyj), испы́танный (ru) (ispýtannyj), подтверждённый (ru) (podtverždjónnyj)
• Spanish: probado (es) m, demostrado (es), comprobado (es)
• Tagalog: diyama
• Ukrainian: доведений (dovedenyj)

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Translations to be checked

• Dutch: ^{(please verify)} bewezen (nl)
• German: ^{(please verify)} bewiesen (de), ^{(please verify)} nachgewiesen (de)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Greek: ^{(please verify)} αποδεδειγμένος (el) (apodedeigménos)

Verb

proven

1. (proscribed) past participle of prove

Usage notes

As the past participle of prove, proven is often discouraged, with proved preferred – “have proved” rather than “have proven”; the prescriptivism is however rarely observed in practice. They are both equally common in everyday use in American and Canadian English. Both are used and considered correct in British English, but “have proved” is more common. Note as well the somewhat comparable differences in conjugation with “have snuck” and “have dove” (American English and Canadian English) as opposed to “have sneaked” and “have dived” (British English), with regional exceptions.

Historically, proved is the older form, while proven arose as a Scottish variant – see etymology. Used in legal writing from the mid-17th century, it entered literary usage more slowly, only becoming significant in the 19th century, with the poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson among the earliest frequent users (presumably for reasons of meter). In the 19th century, proven was widely discouraged, and remained significantly less common through the mid-20th century (proved being used approximately four times as often); by the late 20th century it came to be used about equally often in US English.

As an attributive adjective, proven is much more commonly used, and proved is widely considered an error – “a proven method”, as opposed to *“a proved method”, although grammatically it would not be.

References

• Paul Brians (2009) “proved”, in Common Errors in English Usage, 2nd edition, Wilsonville, Or.: William, James & Company, →ISBN.

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Catalan

Verb

proven

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Dutch

Pronunciation

• Audio:

  (file)

Noun

proven

1. (deprecated template usage) Plural form of prove