convince

Pronunciation

• IPA: /kənˈvɪns/^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin convincere (“to overcome; to convict; to prove”),^[2][3][4] from com-, here intensive, and vincere (“to conquer”) (see victor).^[2][3][5] It is related to convict.^[6][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

To overcome in argument, to prove wrong: 1530, in Palsgrave's Lesclarcissement.^[2][8][4]

Semantic evolution

To overcome or conquer is from 1548, and to convict or prove guilty was another 16th-century sense; both are obsolete.^[8][5][9] Shakespeare used it in Macbeth for overpowering with wine.^[9] The sense of persuading by argument or evidence is first recorded in 1606, in Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida,^[2][8] about 1600 in Etymonline.^[3] Trench notes that convince and convict have been usefully separated: one is convinced of a sin but convicted of a crime.^[7] Convincing is from 1624.^[2]

Timeline

• 1530 – to overcome in argument.^[2][8]
• 1548 – to conquer (obsolete).^[8]
• 1606 – to persuade.^[2][8]
• 1624 – convincing.^[2]

Modern meaning

Verb

1. To make someone believe something by argument or evidence.
2. (chiefly US) To persuade someone to do something.
3. (obsolete) To overcome, or to prove guilty.

Word family

• convincement
• convincer
• convincible
• convincedly
• convincedness
• convincibility

Related words

• convict
• conviction
• reconvince
• victor
• victory
• invincible
• evince

Usage notes

A traditional rule says that one persuades someone to act but convinces someone that something is true, so that convince should not take an infinitive; the AHD notes that convince someone to do has become so common that the rule is unlikely to hold.^[10][11] The Century Dictionary, quoted by Etymonline, made the same distinction.^[3]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b Trench, Richard Chenevix (1859), A Select Glossary of English Words Used Formerly in Senses Different from Their Present, London: John W. Parker
8. ^ a b c d e f Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
11. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins