What does "proven" mean?

1. (tested and effective) used to describe something that people know is good or true because it has worked many times before.

How do you use "proven"?

Commonly appears in the collocations 'proven track record', 'proven ability', and 'proven method'.

proven

adj.

US //ˈpɹuvən// UK //pɹˈuːvən// proven

1 tested and effective (adj.)
B2 Upper Intermediate

used to describe something that people know is good or true because it has worked many times before.

demonstrated to be effective, reliable, or true through experience or testing. Often used as an attributive adjective before a noun.

Example

The company uses a proven method for training new employees that always gets results.

Example

Investors tend to prefer companies with a proven track record of profitability rather than speculative startups with unverified business models.

Usage

Commonly appears in the collocations 'proven track record', 'proven ability', and 'proven method'.
- tested
- established
- verified
- reliable

Origin

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.