Talk:discredulous

RFV discussion: October–November 2012

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for verification (permalink).

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

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discredulous

I don't buy either of the two definitions given, though there seems to be a thirdanother that might be citeable- otherwise I would have speedied it. There are a couple of cases where the term seems to be confused with incredible or discredited, but I didn't see enough to support an entry. I also don't think the citation given has anything to do with either of the current definitions. Rather than getting into a revert war with the editor who created it and later reverted my changes, I thought I would bring it here. Chuck Entz (talk) 00:15, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

One of the definitions was removed by the original editor just before I added the rfv tag, so there's now only one definition- which I still disagree with. Chuck Entz (talk) 00:51, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

The only other meaningful cite (besides the one already in the article) is part of a play where the dialogue of the episode begins mid-conversation and hence makes it near impossible to divine the sense. It is a hit in gbooks but not visible, but is visible in Amazon's look inside:

• 1978, Mervyn Peake

  [KITE hides in the room. Enter UNDERTAKERS.]

  PARKINS: Oh, quite discredulous: it wilts me, Laurance,

  To see you subdivide at such an hour -

  WATKINS: Oh such a day, dear fruit, in such a year

  Of such a decade as decays the chord

  [half singing]

  That binds us ... binds us ...

  Nobody loves or ... minds us ....

Besides which the characters are drunk and not making much sense in any case. The word is not in the OED. SpinningSpark 09:37, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

One usenet example [1], while not a use exactly, does support the untrustworthy meaning. As do some undurable hits don't want to put a discredulous stigma on my company, Unfortunately we live in a world where the police have to protect themselves from discredulous individuals, [2], [3]. SpinningSpark 09:59, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Discredulous can be found in significant numbers using Google Search. I had originally thought it to mean "defamatory", but deleted that definition as I couldn't find a good quote of its use in such a way. --Victar (talk) 14:02, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

The word is non-standard but it is a word nonetheless in my opinion. --Victar (talk) 14:06, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Our Criteria For Inclusion (WT:CFI) call for three independent citations in durably-archived sources. Websites, as a rule, aren't durably archived. We mostly depend on Google Books and on Usenet (accessible through Google Groups). The one durably-cited quote you included in the entry looks, from the context, to mean "not inclined to believe". Chuck Entz (talk) 14:28, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Rereading the quoted book, I'm inclined to agree with your understanding of its use in that context. I've added a definition of "(proscribed) Incredulous", and attributed the quote as that. It does indeed seem to also have a meaning of untrustworthy. His transparent party loyalty makes him discredulous and unreliable. --Victar (talk) 14:57, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

That's three durably archived citations per sense, so two meanings now require a total of six citations. We still only have one. SpinningSpark 16:36, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Right, an impossible task at this point in time. I think it's a word worth watching, even though it may be non-standard/proscribed versions of incredulous and discreditable, respectively. --Victar (talk) 17:23, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Cited first sense. Astral (talk) 00:59, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

First sense RFV-passed, second sense RFV-failed. - -sche (discuss) 04:06, 29 November 2012 (UTC)