Proven
adj, verb ·Uncommon ·College level
Definitions
- 1 past participle of prove form-of, participle, past
- 1 Having been proved; having proved its value or truth.
"It's a proven fact that morphine is a more effective painkiller than acetaminophen is."
- 1 established beyond doubt wordnet
Example
More examples"The news article painted the defendant as a guilty man, even though he had been proven innocent."
Etymology
From Scottish English, as past participle of preve, a Middle English variant of prove – compare woven (from weave) and cloven (from cleave), both of which feature -eve → -oven. Preve died out in England, but survived in Scotland, where proven developed, initially in a legal context, as in “The jury ruled that the charges were not proven.” See usage notes for historical usage patterns. Earlier, from Late Latin probō (“test, try, examine, approve, show to be good or fit, prove”, verb), from Latin probus (“good, worthy, excellent”), from Proto-Indo-European *pro-bʰuH-s (“being in front, prominent”), from *pro-, *per- (“toward”) + *bʰuH- (“to be”). Morphologically prove + -n.
Related phrases
More for "proven"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.