prove

Less common meanings

5. 5
   verb

   Alternative form of proof as a verb: to leave shaped dough to rise before baking, or (of dough) to rise.

   Leave the dough to prove until it doubles in size.

   Cover the shaped loaves with a towel and let them prove in a warm kitchen for an hour.

   UsageUsed for dough, yeast and gun barrels. For checking a text or making something waterproof, the verb is proof.

   Note

   A spelling variant that covers only part of proof's ground. It takes the baker's and the gunsmith's senses: letting shaped dough rise, testing whether yeast is active, and firing a barrel with an overload to show it will not burst.

6. 6
   verbtransitive

   To put something to the test; to make trial of its qualities or strength.

   The army proved its artillery under realistic battlefield conditions.

   Gunmakers prove every barrel by firing a charge far stronger than any it will meet in normal use.

   Similartest, try

   Note

   Testing is the meaning closest to the Latin root, and it survives in proving ground. It is often said to survive in the exception proves the rule too, though that saying more likely meant that an exception shows a rule exists. Shakespeare uses it in his Sonnets (1609), and so does Walter Scott in Tales of the Crusaders (1825), whose pikemen prove "every joint and crevice of the plate and mail", probing the armor for a weak spot. Source

   Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 8 facts

   • The testing sense reflects the Latin root probō, whose meanings include testing and inspection. en.wiktionary.org
   • The testing sense survives in proving ground. en.wikipedia.org
   • An established explanation interprets prove in the saying as meaning test. en.wikipedia.org
   • The better-supported original interpretation is that an exception establishes the existence of a rule. en.wikipedia.org
   • Shakespeare uses prove in the testing sense in Sonnet 26. en.wikipedia.org
   • Shakespeare's Sonnets was first published as a collection in 1609. en.wikipedia.org
   • Walter Scott's Tales of the Crusaders first appeared in 1825. walterscott.lib.ed.ac.uk
   • Scott's narrator describes men thrusting pikes into joints and crevices of armor, using proved in the testing sense; the quoted wording is exact. gutenberg.org
7. 7
   rising timenouncountable

   The stage in breadmaking during which shaped dough is left to rise before baking.

   A slow, cool prove develops more flavor in the crumb.

   After the final prove, the baker scored and loaded the loaves.

   Similarrise, proof

   Note

   The noun bakers made from the dough-rising verb. Paul Allam and David McGuinness, in Bourke Street Bakery (2009), consider "what the prove is doing to the loaf": warming the dough, making it moist, letting it rise. It takes an article and a plural (proves). Bakers often set the final prove of shaped loaves apart from the earlier bulk fermentation. Source

   Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 3 facts

   • Paul Allam and David McGuinness wrote Bourke Street Bakery, published in 2009. allenandunwin.co.nz
   • The quotation is accurate, and its surrounding passage describes warming and moistening the dough so it can rise. en.wiktionary.org
   • Final proving follows shaping and is distinguished from bulk fermentation. en.wikipedia.org
8. 8
   test printverbdatedtransitive

   To take a trial impression of printed material so it can be checked before the full run.

   Note

   A printer's word, now dated as a verb. The trial impression it produces is a proof, the sheet checked for errors before the full run. The verb names pulling that sheet and the noun the sheet itself; reading it is proofreading. To prove a page is the classic phrasing, with the page, sheet or forme as the object.

9. 9
   go throughverbarchaictransitive

   To experience or undergo something for oneself.

   Where she, captived long, great woes did prove.

   1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene

   Note

   A literary archaism. In Book IV of The Faerie Queene (1596), Spenser writes of a captive who "great woes did prove". The object is something undergone, such as woes, trials or fortune. The sense sits close to the "put to the test" meaning, since to live through a hardship is to be tried by it. Outside deliberate period style, experience or undergo says the same thing without sounding borrowed from Spenser. Source

   Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 2 facts

   • Books I–III first appeared in 1590; Book IV, containing this quotation, first appeared in 1596. en.wikipedia.org
   • Spenser wrote the quoted words about a captive. en.wikisource.org
10. 10
    verb

    In homeopathy, to find out by trial what effects a substance produces when it is swallowed.