Noun

(countable) An effort, process, or operation designed to establish or discover a fact or truth; an act of testing; a test; a trial.

* 1591 , , ''Humorous Poems ,

But the false Fox most kindly played his part,

For whatsoever mother-wit or art

Could work he put in proof . No practice sly,

No counterpoint of cunning policy,

No reach, no breach, that might him profit bring.

But he the same did to his purpose wring.

* c. 1633 , , Act 1, Scene 1,

France I more praise and love; you are, my lord,

Yourself for horsemanship much famed; and there

You shall have many proofs to shew your skill.

* 1831 , , A System of Chemistry of Inorganic Bodies , Volume 2,

A given quantity of the spirits was poured upon a quantity of gunpowder in a dish and set on fire. If at the end of the combustion, the gunpowder continued dry enough, it took fire and exploded; but if it had been wetted by the water in the spirits, the flame of the alcohol went out without setting the powder on fire. This was called the proof .

(uncountable) The degree of evidence which convinces the mind of any truth or fact, and produces belief; a test by facts or arguments which induce, or tend to induce, certainty of the judgment; conclusive evidence; demonstration.

* c.1603 , ,

I'll have some proof .

* 1841 , '' in ''Essays: First Series ,

It was a grand sentence of Emanuel Swedenborg, which would alone indicate the greatness of that man's perception, — "It is no proof of a man's understanding to be able to confirm whatever he pleases; but to be able to discern that what is true is true, and that what is false is false, this is the mark and character of intelligence."

* 1990 October 16, ,

Faith, faith is an island in the setting sun

But proof , yes

Proof is the bottom line for everyone

The quality or state of having been proved or tried; firmness or hardness which resists impression, or doesn't yield to force; impenetrability of physical bodies.

(obsolete) Experience of something.

* 1590 , (Edmund Spenser), The Faerie Queene , III.1:

But the chaste damzell, that had never priefe / Of such malengine and fine forgerye, / Did easely beleeve her strong extremitye.

(uncountable, obsolete) Firmness of mind; stability not to be shaken.

(countable, printing) A proof sheet; a trial impression, as from type, taken for correction or examination.

(countable, logic, mathematics) A sequence of statements consisting of axioms, assumptions, statements already demonstrated in another proof, and statements that logically follow from previous statements in the sequence, and which concludes with a statement that is the object of the proof.

(countable, mathematics) A process for testing the accuracy of an operation performed. Compare prove, transitive verb , 5.

(obsolete) Armour of excellent or tried quality, and deemed impenetrable; properly, armour of proof.

(Shakespeare)

(US) A measure of the alcohol content of liquor. Originally, in Britain, 100 proof' was defined as 57.1% by volume (not used anymore). In the US, 100 '''proof''' means that the alcohol content is 50% of the total volume of the liquid, and thus, absolute alcohol would be 200 ' proof .

Noun

(en noun)

A book, composition or any other document, written by hand (or manually typewritten), not mechanically reproduced.

*

, title=(The Celebrity), chapter=1 , passage=In the old days, to my commonplace and unobserving mind, he gave no evidences of genius whatsoever. He never read me any of his manuscripts , […], and therefore my lack of detection of his promise may in some degree be pardoned.}}

* {{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=September-October, author=(Henry Petroski)

, magazine=(American Scientist), title= The Evolution of Eyeglasses , passage=The ability of a segment of a glass sphere to magnify whatever is placed before it was known around the year 1000, when the spherical segment was called a reading stone,

A single, original copy of a book, article, composition etc, written by hand or even printed, submitted as original for (copy-editing and) reproductive publication.