credibility
- 1A reputation that affects how readily others will believe what one says.
The newspaper's credibility suffered after it published an unverified story.
Years of accurate reporting gave the broadcaster real credibility with viewers.
Similartrustworthiness, reliability, reputation, authority, standing
Note
Trust treated as something a person holds, spends and can lose. The word reached English through French crédibilité from Latin credibilis, and it reads plainly as credible + -ity. One has credibility with someone, and it is typically undermined or tarnished rather than simply reduced. The fixed phrase credibility gap names the distance between what an institution says and what its audience is willing to believe.
- 2The believability of a witness's statements, judged by how probable or improbable the testimony seems against common experience.
The defense attacked the credibility of the key witness during cross-examination.
Inconsistencies in his account steadily undermined the credibility of his testimony.
Similarbelievability, plausibility, reliability
Oppositeimplausibility
Note
In the courtroom, the question narrows from who a person is to whether their account could plausibly have happened. Testimony is weighed against common experience, so a story that runs against how things ordinarily go loses credibility even when the witness has a good name. That is the line between this legal use and the everyday sense of reputation: a trusted person can still give improbable evidence, and the trier of fact judges the evidence itself.
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Origin
Borrowed from French crédibilité, from Medieval Latin credibilitas, from Latin credibilis. By surface analysis, it is credible + -ity.