What's the difference between credulity and proof?

Credulity


Definition:

  • (n.) Readiness of belief; a disposition to believe on slight evidence.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) When President Obama stands up and says - as he did when he addressed the nation in February 2011 about Libya - that "the United States will continue to stand up for freedom, stand up for justice, and stand up for the dignity of all people", it should trigger nothing but a scornful fit of laughter, not credulous support (by the way, not that anyone much cares any more, but here's what is happening after the Grand Success of the Libya Intervention: "Tribal and historical loyalties still run deep in Libya, which is struggling to maintain central government control in a country where armed militia wield real power and meaningful systems of law and justice are lacking after the crumbling of Gaddafi's eccentric personal rule").
  • (2) With much of the work supposed to be completed by December, it is stretching credulity to believe that much more than token consultations with patient groups can take place.
  • (3) This leads to the paradoxical result that some of our most famous and successful journalists are also the profession's most credulous sycophants.
  • (4) When 11,000 jobs and a lot of pensions are at risk over the collapse of the ailing store group from which he extracted £586 m, let’s not waste any more time on King Phil (I’ve informally stripped him of his knighthood), his hurt feelings or embarrassingly vulgar yachts, except to say that – yet again – that Tony Blair was a credulous sucker for a rich man with tax-shy habits.
  • (5) It doesn't exactly stretch credulity, however, to recognize that banks provide bonuses to the best producers – whether they produce derivatives, mortgages or foreclosures.
  • (6) Given the inertia on even the most modest legislative response to the mass murder of schoolchildren, those still credulous enough to believe that our governance is representative of popular will are either Barnum-sized suckers, or worse, tacit participants in tragedies soon to come.
  • (7) Credulous voters will agree and feel placated, but in actuality, such measures will make little if any difference.
  • (8) The Crown Prosecution Service should not be so credulous in future.” But the CPS expressed satisfaction with the outcome of the trial.
  • (9) I think he’s a dangerous manchild with an army of credulous misogynists at his disposal.
  • (10) Pretending that the government's current forecasts and plans are certain and reliable, when the ones made only three years ago turned out to be anything but, stretches credulity.
  • (11) What we see is not meritocracy at work at all, but a wealth grab by a nepotistic executive class that sets its own salaries, tests credulity with its ridiculous demands, and discovers that credulity is an amenable customer.
  • (12) The boy insists he is not among the stone-throwers, an assertion that stretches credulity.
  • (13) It strains credulity to accept that a secretary of state who handles all her communications on a home-brewed server never passed classified information,” Fiorina said.
  • (14) Hague's campaign included parading Kaminski before the Jewish Chronicle and the more credulous blogger Iain Dale at the party conference: Dale's interview is reprinted across five pages in Total Politics , of which Lord Ashcroft owns 25%.
  • (15) The pirate's credulity regarding the US authorities' bogus ransom negotiations may make for a happy ending, but it's also the moment when America's superpower seems almost tragically all-consuming.
  • (16) Kiev's police chief later claimed that he ordered the assault, but that strains credulity.
  • (17) That suggestion, which always appeared unsatisfactory, now stretches the bounds of credulity.
  • (18) Equally credulous were those who, on the Monday evening, circulated reports that rioters had broken into London Zoo – thanks largely to a single, poorly-lit picture of what appears to be a tiger on a stairwell , with the irresistible subject line: "Oh my god – reports of tigers roaming around Primrose Hill."
  • (19) But the manipulation does not just tell us how sly operators view the credulous masses, but how they see themselves.
  • (20) Ghosts are not phantoms floating on the periphery of village life, the concern only of children and the credulous.

Proof


Definition:

  • (n.) Any effort, process, or operation designed to establish or discover a fact or truth; an act of testing; a test; a trial.
  • (n.) That degree of evidence which convinces the mind of any truth or fact, and produces belief; a test by facts or arguments that induce, or tend to induce, certainty of the judgment; conclusive evidence; demonstration.
  • (n.) The quality or state of having been proved or tried; firmness or hardness that resists impression, or does not yield to force; impenetrability of physical bodies.
  • (n.) Firmness of mind; stability not to be shaken.
  • (n.) A trial impression, as from type, taken for correction or examination; -- called also proof sheet.
  • (n.) A process for testing the accuracy of an operation performed. Cf. Prove, v. t., 5.
  • (v. t.) Armor of excellent or tried quality, and deemed impenetrable; properly, armor of proof.
  • (a.) Used in proving or testing; as, a proof load, or proof charge.
  • (a.) Firm or successful in resisting; as, proof against harm; waterproof; bombproof.
  • (a.) Being of a certain standard as to strength; -- said of alcoholic liquors.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Now, as the Senate takes up a weakened House bill along with the House's strengthened backdoor-proof amendment, it's time to put focus back on sweeping reform.
  • (2) Immunohistochemical insulin proofs were positive in the peritoneum over a period of 3 months and in the liver up to one year after implantation.
  • (3) Although histologic proof of regression is not available, this experience suggests a more favorable prognosis than previously thought possible.
  • (4) I never accuse a student of plagiarizing unless I have proof, almost always in the form of sources easily found by Googling a few choice phrases.
  • (5) The appearance of plasma cells suggests local maturation of B cells and represents a morphologic proof of local production of immunoglobulins.
  • (6) Sharif Mobley, 30, whose lawyers consider him to be disappeared, managed to call his wife in Philadelphia on Thursday, the first time they had spoken since February and a rare independent proof he is alive since a brief phone call with his mother in July.
  • (7) There is general agreement that suicides are likely to be undercounted, both for structural reasons (the burden-of-proof issue, the requirement that the coroner or medical examiner suspect the possibility of suicide) and for sociocultural reasons.
  • (8) At least Depay departed having had a shot on target, something his manager will probably offer as proof United are improving.
  • (9) And Pippi Longstocking, her most famous character, comes really close to being the personified proof of that… So where did Pippi come from?
  • (10) The data are presented in proof of the existence of different as well as common pathways for virus inhibiting effects of different preparations.
  • (11) Proof of the eye's potent antimicrobial environment was demonstrated.
  • (12) Agüero tried to retreive the situation – proof that City had more than enough finishers on hand to take advantage of momentary Burnley disarray – though, forced away from goal, he shot from a narrow angle and missed the target.
  • (13) These case histories, and very substantial background proof of efficacy and safety, justify treating with CoQ10 patients in failure awaiting transplantation.
  • (14) There's no doubt Twitter is, for those who are into that kind of thing, a first-class social networking medium (the proof: pretty much every other social networking site, including Facebook, has tried to buy it and, having failed, adopted a whole raft of blatantly Twitter-like features of their own).
  • (15) When the Washington Post reports a boom in bullet-proof backpacks for children, it is not a good time to be a resident of a place colloquially known as The Arms.
  • (16) Proof stress, ultimate tensile strength, elongation, and plastic stiffness have been measured and results compared by use of analyses of variance.
  • (17) Jonathan's party and the biggest opposition coalition have traded accusations about who is sponsoring and arming Boko Haram, but none have provided any proof.
  • (18) Many drugs have been proposed although the documentary proof of their efficacy varies.
  • (19) Fielding said: "He [Stewart] mentioned that on the day before the execution, when Allen was visited by his wife for the last time, they were separated by a piece of what was supposed to be bullet-proofed glass.
  • (20) He compared the situation to insider trading or corruption, in which there may not be direct proof of a criminal quid pro quo taking place, but where there is a pattern of behaviour that warrants attention.