Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Likely to happen or to be true.
  • adjective Likely but uncertain; plausible.
  • adjective Theology Of or relating to opinions and actions in ethics and morals for whose lawfulness intrinsic reasons or extrinsic authority may be adduced.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Capable of being proved; provable.
  • Having more evidence for than against, or evidence which inclines the mind to belief, but leaves some room for doubt; likely.
  • Rendering something likely, or showing it to be likely: as, probable evidence; a probable presumption.
  • Plausible; specious; colorable.
  • Synonyms Presumable, credible, reasonable.
  • noun A probable opinion; an opinion resting upon good but not sufficient grounds.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective obsolete Capable of being proved.
  • adjective Having more evidence for than against; supported by evidence which inclines the mind to believe, but leaves some room for doubt; likely.
  • adjective Rendering probable; supporting, or giving ground for, belief, but not demonstrating
  • adjective (Law) a reasonable ground of presumption that a charge is, or my be, well founded.
  • adjective (of an observation, or of the mean of a number), that within which, taken positively and negatively, there is an even chance that the real error shall lie. Thus, if 3″ is the probable error in a given case, the chances that the real error is greater than 3″ are equal to the chances that it is less. The probable error is computed from the observations made, and is used to express their degree of accuracy.
  • adjective that which is within the bounds of probability; that which is not unnatural or preternatural; -- opposed to the marvelous.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Likely or most likely to be true.
  • adjective Likely to happen.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective apparently destined
  • adjective likely but not certain to be or become true or real
  • noun an applicant likely to be chosen

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, plausible, from Old French, from Latin probābilis, from probāre, to prove; see prove.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French probable, from Latin probabilis ("that may be proved, credible"), from probare ("to test, examine"); see probe, prove.

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Examples

  • _comparatively_ probable, when after hearing all the reasons and all the authorities on the other side, the said opinion still remains _not unlikely_, which is all that we mean to say of an opinion here, when we call it _probable_.

    Moral Philosophy Joseph Rickaby 1888

  • ATP and its independent third party reservoir engineers use the term "probable" to describe volumes of reserves potentially recoverable through additional drilling or recovery techniques that, by their nature, are more speculative than estimates of proved reserves.

    unknown title 2012

  • It's really early to speculate on the final cause and the federal investigators will spend weeks, months, who knows how long it will take before they'll come up with what they call probable cause.

    CNN Transcript Oct 12, 2006 2006

  • It's really early to speculate on the final cause and the federal investigators will spend weeks, months, who knows how long it will take before they'll come up with what they call probable cause.

    CNN Transcript Oct 12, 2006 2006

  • That's why we're reporting that we have what we call probable developed producing because those -- that additional 4% recovery that's associated with Phases 1 and 2 that have been developed, all the money invested and they're now in the producing status.

    unknown title 2011

  • There probable is a lot of reason that she wantto get out of being governor, but we will not know until years from now.

    Palin's strength lies in the grassroots 2009

  • Just over 100 have been deemed carcinogens, 59 are called probable carcinogens, and 266 others are possible ones.

    Weighing cancer risks, from cellphones to coffee 2011

  • Just over 100 have been deemed carcinogens, 59 are called probable carcinogens, and 266 others are possible ones.

    Weighing cancer risks, from cellphones to coffee 2011

  • Just over 100 have been deemed carcinogens, 59 are called probable carcinogens, and 266 others are possible ones.

    Weighing cancer risks, from cellphones to coffee 2011

  • Just over 100 have been deemed carcinogens, 59 are called probable carcinogens, and 266 others are possible ones.

    Weighing cancer risks, from cellphones to coffee 2011

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