different between falsifiable vs falsify

English

Etymology

falsify +? -able

Adjective

falsifiable (comparative more falsifiable, superlative most falsifiable)

1. Logically capable of being proven false.

   The sentence "It will rain tomorrow" is falsifiable, while the sentence "It is what it is" is not.

2. Capable of being falsified or forged.

   A digital signature algorithm must be not falsifiable.

3. (epistemology) The demarcation criterion between scientific and non-scientific statements proposed by Karl Popper. In order to be ranked as scientific, statements or systems of statements must be contradicted by an intersubjective singular existential statement, also called a basic statement, and not be contradicted by another, that is, they must also be logically possible.

   The statement It rains every day, everywhere is falsifiable, because it is contradicted by the basic statement On the third of August, in New York city it was not raining and it is not contradicted by the basic statement On the second of August, in New York city it was raining, while the statement It will rain someday is not falsifiable.

Derived terms

• falsifiability
• nonfalsifiable
• unfalsifiable

Related terms

• falsify
• falsificationism

Translations

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /fal.si.fjabl/
• Rhymes: -abl
• Homophone: falsifiables

Adjective

falsifiable (plural falsifiables)

1. falsifiable

Related terms

• falsifiabilité
• falsificateur
• falsifier
• faux

Further reading

• “falsifiable” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

English

Etymology

From French falsifier, from Late Latin falsific?re, present active infinitive of falsific? (“make false, corrupt, counterfeit, falsify”), from Latin falsificus, from falsus (“false”), corresponding to false +? -ify.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?f?ls?fa?/

Verb

falsify (third-person singular simple present falsifies, present participle falsifying, simple past and past participle falsified)

1. (transitive) To alter so as to make false; to make incorrect.

   • The Irish bards use to forge and falsify everything as they list, to please or displease any man.

2. (transitive) To misrepresent.
3. (transitive) To prove to be false.
   • 1730, Joseph Addison, The Evidences Of The Christian Religion

     Jews and Pagans united all their endeavors, under Julian the apostate, to baffle and falsify the prediction.

4. (transitive) To counterfeit; to forge.

5. (transitive, accounting) To show (an item of charge inserted in an account) to be wrong.
   • 1833, Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States

     It will allow the account to stand, with liberty to the plaintiff to surcharge and falsify it

   • 1912, Peyton Boyle, The Federal Reporter: Cases Argued and Determined in the Circuit District Courts of the United States

     The chancery rules governing proceedings to surcharge and falsify accounts are applicable only where an account has been stated between the parties, or where something equivalent thereto has been done.

6. (transitive, obsolete) To baffle or escape.
   • a. 1680, Samuel Butler, Fragments of an intended second part of the foregoing satire

     For disputants (as swordsmen use to fence / With blunted foyles) engage with blunted sense; / And as th' are wont to falsify a blow, / Use nothing else to pass upon a foe […]

7. (transitive, obsolete) To violate; to break by falsehood.

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

Further reading

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