From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!floyd!peri!sbcs!debray
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Title: Original meaning of PROVE
Article-I.D.: sbcs.221
Posted: Sat Mar  5 09:51:35 1983
Received: Tue Mar  8 03:03:54 1983


This refers back to something I saw in an article a few days ago in this
newsgroup, which claimed that the original meaning of "prove" was *NOT*
"to test".

Here's the Oxford English Dictionary (1971 edition) on the subject :

"prove" derives from the Latin "probare" - to test (a thing) as to its
goodness, to try a thing out. Meanings :
	I. To make trial of, try, test ; to subject to a testing process ...

example : "[The engraver] proved a plate in different states, that he might
ascertain how far his labours had been successful." (Encyclopaedia Brittanica,
3rd. ed., 1797, vol XV, p 590 ).


Sorry to be pedantic, but I HAD to be vindicated!
Saumya Debray
SUNY at Stony Brook
{peri!, allegra!} sbcs!debray