Word
credibility
Phoneticscred·i·bil·i·ty
US/ˌkɹɛdəˈbɪɫɪti/
UK/kɹˌɛdɪbˈɪlɪti/
Definitions
01trustworthiness
n. the quality that makes people trust you or believe what you say.
n. the quality of being trusted and believed in. Uncountable in general usage.
“The scandal caused the politician to lose all his credibility with the voters.”
“The administration's failure to address the initial reports of corruption severely undermined its credibility during the subsequent election cycle.”
Academic
Usage
Often used with the verbs 'gain', 'lose', 'undermine', or 'establish'.
Synonyms
Antonyms
02legal believability
n. how much a judge or jury can believe a witness or a piece of evidence.
n. the believability of a witness or testimony, evaluated based on consistency and probability.
“The lawyer questioned the witness's credibility because she had lied in the past.”
“The defence sought to impeach the witness's credibility by introducing evidence of a prior conviction for perjury.”
Technical · Formal
Teaching tip
In legal contexts, credibility is often 'attacked' or 'bolstered' through cross-examination.
Synonyms
Real-World Examples
“When allegations surfaced in the UK media in July, Cambridge said it had investigated the claims and found no wrongdoing, describing Arday as the victim of a “vile smear campaign to undermine his credibility”.” “Other topics included track and field’s ban on Russian athletes, private equity in sports and FIFA’s credibility crisis following a controversial overturned red card at the World Cup.” Etymology
Borrowed from French crédibilité, from Medieval Latin credibilitas, from Latin credibilis. By surface analysis, credible + -ity.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Word family
Related words
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englishreference.com/q/credibility