plausibility

English

Etymology

Borrowed from New Latin plausibilitās.

Noun

plausibility (countable and uncountable, plural plausibilities)

1. (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

2. (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.

3. 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!

4. (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

• implausibility

Translations

praiseworthiness — see praiseworthiness

speciousness

plausible statement or argument

• Macedonian: у́бедлив m (úbedliv)

believability

• Catalan: versemblança f
• Czech: plauzibilita (cs) f
• Dutch: plausibiliteit (nl) f, waarschijnlijkheid (nl) f, aannemelijkheid (nl) f
• German: Plausibilität (de) f
• Macedonian: убе́дливост f (ubédlivost)
• Manx: so-chredjallaght f
• Romanian: plauzibilitate (ro)
• Serbo-Croatian: plauzibilnost (sh)
• Spanish: plausibilidad (es)

References

• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin Eli Smith, editors (1895–1910), “plausibility”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
• “plausibility”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.