evidence

From Middle English, from Old French, from Latin evidentia (“clearness, in Late Latin a proof”), from evidens (“clear, evident”); see evident.

• IPA^(key): /ˈɛvɪdəns/, /ˈɛvədəns/
• (US) IPA^(key): [ˈɛvəɾəns]

• Audio (US)

  (file)

evidence (usually uncountable, plural evidences)

1. Facts or observations presented in support of an assertion.
   • David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, 1748

     In our reasonings concerning matter of fact, there are all imaginable degrees of assurance, from the highest certainty to the lowest species of moral evidence. A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence.

   • 2012 March 1, Brian Hayes, “Pixels or Perish”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 2, page 106:

     Drawings and pictures are more than mere ornaments in scientific discourse. Blackboard sketches, geological maps, diagrams of molecular structure, astronomical photographs, MRI images, the many varieties of statistical charts and graphs: These pictorial devices are indispensable tools for presenting evidence, for explaining a theory, for telling a story.

   There is no evidence that anyone was here earlier.

   We have enough cold hard evidence in that presentation which will make a world of pain for our parasitic friends at Antarctica.

2. (law) Anything admitted by a court to prove or disprove alleged matters of fact in a trial.
   • 2004 April 15, “Morning swoop in hunt for Jodi's killer”, in The Scotsman:

     For Lothian and Borders Police, the early-morning raid had come at the end one of biggest investigations carried out by the force, which had originally presented a dossier of evidence on the murder of Jodi Jones to the Edinburgh procurator-fiscal, William Gallagher, on 25 November last year.

3. One who bears witness.
   • Sir Walter Scott

     infamous and perjured evidences

   • 1820, Charles Maturin, Melmoth the Wanderer, volume 1, page 53:

     He recapitulated the Sybil’s story word by word, with the air of a man who is cross-examining an evidence, and trying to make him contradict himself.

4. A body of objectively verifiable facts that are positively indicative of, and/or exclusively concordant with, that one conclusion over any other.

• Adjectives often used with the term "evidence": documentary, physical, empirical, scientific, material, circumstantial, anectodal, objective, strong, weak, conclusive, hard

• after-discovered evidence
• clear and convincing evidence
• demurrer to evidence
• preponderance of evidence, preponderance of the evidence
• self-evidence

• evident
• evidential

evidence (third-person singular simple present evidences, present participle evidencing, simple past and past participle evidenced)

1. (transitive) To provide evidence for, or suggest the truth of.

   She was furious, as evidenced by her slamming the door.

• For quotations of use of this term, see Citations:evidence.

• evidence in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• evidence in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

• IPA^(key): [ˈɛvɪdɛnt͡sɛ]
• Rhymes: -ɛntsɛ

evidence f

1. records

• See vize
• evidenční
• evidovat

• záznamy
• databáze

• evidence in Příruční slovník jazyka českého, 1935–1957
• evidence in Slovník spisovného jazyka českého, 1960–1971, 1989

evidence f (plural evidences)

1. evidence

• French: évidence