Dictionary

plausibility en · NOUN

Etymology

Borrowed from New Latin plausibilitās.

Meanings

1. (countable, obsolete, uncountable) The quality of deserving applause, praiseworthiness; something worthy of praise.
   • integrity, fidelity, and other gracious plausibilities 1668, David Lloyd, Memories of the Lives, Actions, Sufferings & Deaths of Those Noble, Reverend, and Excellent Personages that Suffered […] for the Protestant Religion:
2. (archaic, countable, uncountable) The appearance of truth, especially when deceptive; speciousness.
   • Plausibility, I know, can only be unmasked by shewing the absurdities it glosses over, and the simple truths it involves with specious errors. 1790, Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Men:
3. (countable, uncountable) A plausible statement, argument etc.
   • 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! 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:
4. (countable, in more positive sense, uncountable) The fact of being believable; believability, credibility.
   • 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). 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, Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG., →ISBN, page 173:

Forms

Deriveds

implausibility

Translations (12)

nl aannemelijkheid (believability) · sh plauzibilnost (believability) · cs plauzibilita (believability) · mk у́бедлив (plausible statement or argument) · gv so-chredjallaght (believability) · nl waarschijnlijkheid (believability) · mk убе́дливост (believability) · ca versemblança (believability) · de Plausibilität (believability) · nl plausibiliteit (believability) · ro plauzibilitate (believability) · es plausibilidad (believability)