verify
Americanverb (used with object)
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verifies,
present (3rd person singular)
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verified,
past participle, past
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verifying
present participle
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to prove the truth of, as by evidence or testimony; confirm; substantiate.
Events verified his prediction.
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to ascertain the truth or correctness of, as by examination, research, or comparison.
to verify a spelling.
- Synonyms:
- validate, authenticate
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to act as ultimate proof or evidence of; serve to confirm.
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Law.
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to prove or confirm (an allegation).
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to state to be true, especially in legal use, formally or upon oath.
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verb
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to prove to be true; confirm; substantiate
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to check or determine the correctness or truth of by investigation, reference, etc
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law to add a verification to (a pleading); substantiate or confirm (an oath)
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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unverifiabilitynoun
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verifiabilitynoun
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verifiablenessnoun
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verifiernoun
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preverifyverb (used with object)
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reverifyverb (used with object)
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nonverifiableadjective
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unverifiableadjective
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verifiableadjective
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verifiablyadverb
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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verifysimple
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verifiessimple
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have verifiedperfect
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has verifiedperfect
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am verifyingprogressive
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are verifyingprogressive
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is verifyingprogressive
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have been verifyingperfect progressive
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has been verifyingperfect progressive
Past
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verifiedsimple
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had verifiedperfect
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was verifyingprogressive
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were verifyingprogressive
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had been verifyingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of verify
First recorded in 1275–1325; Middle English verifien, from Middle French verifier, from Medieval Latin vērificāre, from vēri- (combining form of vērus “true”) + -ficāre -fy
Explanation
When you verify something, you show that it's true. Do you have a photograph to verify your claim that there's a dinosaur in your backyard? Physical evidence and records are often used to verify what's happened. Your receipt verifies that you purchased the tall, striped hat you'd now like to return. You can also verify something verbally. Can you verify that your cat was home all evening on the night of the canary's "accident"?
Vocabulary lists containing verify
List 1
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Tier 2 Words for the SBAC ELA Items
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Jim Burke's Academic Vocabulary List
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Since then, the City Section established a rule that teams must exchange rosters before games to verify that players are eligible, known as the “Hawkins rule.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 22, 2026
But in fact, just days before the raids began, Iran offered to suspend enriching its uranium for three years, to limit enrichment afterward to very low levels, and to allow international inspectors to verify compliance.
From Slate ● Sep. 22, 2026
My advice is simple: Slow down, diversify, independently verify who is managing the money, and be skeptical of anything promising unusually high or consistent returns.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 18, 2026
Half has gone towards development, including a mobile app for uploading animal sightings and an AI system that helps humans verify observations.
From Barron's ● Sep. 17, 2026
It took me a few seconds of staring into Lucas’s eyes to verify that he was joking.
From "Where Things Come Back" by John Corey Whaley
“The real question is whether the market evidence verifies that this particular property belongs there,” he added.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 31, 2026
GeoConfirmed, a volunteer-driven open-source intelligence project that verifies visuals from conflicts around the globe, also urged Google to reconsider.
From Barron's ● Jul. 31, 2026
And Oracle independently inspects and verifies every piece of the application’s source code and each software update.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 23, 2026
The SIR process verifies current voter records against the 2002 electoral rolls, the last time such a nationwide revision was carried out.
From BBC ● Jun. 29, 2026
Even in churches which are not Orthodox,—churches like our own, which insist more upon development than upon crisis,—observation verifies this description.
From Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors by James Freeman Clarke
Jones soon stumbled upon another scam, which takes advantage of users’ trust in verified profiles.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 22, 2026
Scientists and engineers working at the Coronagraph Commanding Center at Caltech/IPAC in Pasadena, California, verified that they can communicate with every major part of the instrument.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 21, 2026
Top U.S. officials doubt whether any agreement could be credibly enforced or verified.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 17, 2026
It has also criticised the film's use of anonymous sources, whose identity and involvement in military activity in Gaza it says cannot be verified.
From Barron's ● Sep. 17, 2026
When he had satisfied himself on these points of which he had spoken, and I had verified all as well as I could by the books available, he suddenly stood up and said:—
From "Dracula" by Bram Stoker
Once the quantum calculation becomes too difficult for a classical computer to reproduce, verifying that the quantum machine actually produced the correct result becomes increasingly difficult as well.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 30, 2026
Kalshi said it is looking to broaden its fast-growing weather-predictions markets with meteorological know-how from the Weather Co., which is now verifying outcomes on climate trades.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 27, 2026
Nouzille says he spent three years carefully verifying everything in the files.
From BBC ● Jul. 25, 2026
On the one hand, the types of technologies that have exploded since the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022 can automate tasks like editing grammar or verifying facts and figures.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 17, 2026
When she whined to the policeman, verifying Milkman’s and Guitar’s lie that they had ripped off the sack as a joke on an old lady, she had to look up at him.
From "Song of Solomon" by Toni Morrison
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
