confirmation
Pluralconfirmations (some meanings)
- 1Proof or evidence that something is true or has taken place.
The lab results provided confirmation that the original diagnosis was correct.
Investigators sought confirmation of the witness's account before filing charges.
Similarproof, evidence, verification, corroboration, substantiation
Oppositerefutation, disproof, contradiction, denial
Note
Here the Latin root shows through plainly: cōnfirmāre, from con- and firmāre, "to strengthen". A confirmation makes a belief firmer rather than creating it. It pairs naturally with of (a confirmation of my suspicions) and takes intensifiers: Natalie Angiers writes of "ringing confirmation" in The Guardian (1999), and formal confirmation is the official kind. As a mass noun it means evidence in general, and with an article it means one particular piece.
- 2An official indication that something will proceed as planned.
The airline sent confirmation that the flight would depart on schedule.
Once you receive confirmation from the registrar, your enrollment is secure.
Similarnotification, acknowledgment, verification, notice, assurance
- 3A Christian ceremony marking a person's conscious acceptance of the faith, usually around ages 14 to 18; treated as a sacrament in Catholicism and some churches but not in most Protestant ones.
Their daughter received her confirmation at fourteen, surrounded by family and godparents.
The parish held confirmation for a dozen teenagers at the Easter vigil.
Note
Behind the ceremony sits the same Latin "strengthening" as the "proof" meaning, but what is made firm here is a person's own faith, sealed and consciously acknowledged. Billy Joel's "Only the Good Die Young" (1977) catches the rite's social side: the white dress and the party. In everyday speech people talk about someone's confirmation as an occasion, and things happen on it.
- 4A legal act by which something conditional or voidable is made certain and final, especially the possession of an estate.
The deed of confirmation settled the heir's title beyond any future challenge.
Lawyers sought confirmation of the conditional grant to secure the estate.
Similarratification, validation
Oppositeannulment, rescission
Note
Law keeps the word closest to its Latin sense of making firm. A confirmation does not discover that a title is good. It turns a conditional or voidable interest into one that can no longer be set aside, classically an estate held on uncertain terms. That is the line between this and the everyday "proof" sense: one verifies a fact, and the other changes a legal status.
Practice
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Origin
It comes from Middle English confirmacioun, via Old French confirmacion, from Latin cōnfirmātiō, a noun formed from cōnfirmāre: itself built from con- ("with") plus firmāre ("to firm or strengthen").