corroborate

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin corrōborātus (“strengthened”), the past participle of corrōborō (“to strengthen, invigorate”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} from com- (“together”), here intensive,^[2][3] and rōborō (“to make strong”),^[2][3][7] from rōbur (“strength; oak”),^[7][8][6] the source of robust.^[3][9][6] The American Heritage Dictionary refers the noun to Proto-Indo-European *reudh-.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

To give legal or formal confirmation to a law or legal act: 1530.^[2] Merriam-Webster Unabridged gives 1529 as the first known use,^[5] and Etymonline dates the word to the 1520s.^[3] The Oxford Dictionary of English and the Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins take "to make physically stronger" as the first sense.^[10][9]

Semantic evolution

In the 16th century the word had several senses of strengthening: physicians and medicines were said to corroborate the body from 1533, in Elyot's Castel of Helthe,^[2][3] a use that lasted into the early 19th century.^[2][11] From 1543 it was also used of strengthening a quality or faculty, now archaic.^[2][11] The modern sense, to support a statement or opinion with agreeing evidence, is the youngest: the OED first has it of a person in a letter by Pope (1706), and of the confirming statement in Johnson's Rambler (1751).^[2][3][12] The Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins sees it as the facts of an account being strengthened.^[9] Johnson's dictionary (1755) gave "to confirm; to establish" and "to strengthen; to make strong".^[13] A past participle corroborate is recorded from 1532 and is now archaic.^[2][11][5] In East Anglian dialect the verb meant to match or correspond, as of a pair: "I don't think they do fare to corroborate".^[14]

Timeline

• 1530 – to give legal or formal confirmation to.^[2]
• 1532 – past participle corroborate, strengthened, confirmed.^[2]
• 1533 – of medicines, to invigorate.^[2]
• 1543 – to strengthen a quality or power.^[2]
• 1593 – to strengthen materially (obsolete by 1802).^[2]
• 1706 – to support an opinion or statement with agreeing evidence.^[2][3]
• 1776 – intransitive, to concur in testimony (obsolete by 1790).^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To confirm or support a statement or opinion with further evidence: Two neighbours corroborated her account of the evening.^[5][8][7][2]
2. To confirm a law or legal act formally.^[2][11]
3. (archaic) To strengthen a quality or faculty, or a person in it.^[2][11]
4. (obsolete, 1533–1822) To invigorate the body, especially of a medicine.^[2][11]
5. (obsolete, 1593–1802) To strengthen materially.^[2][11]

Adjective

1. (archaic) Corroborated, confirmed.^[5][8][2]

Word family

• corroboration
• corroborator
• corroborative
• corroboratory
• corroboratively

Related words

• robust

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
9. ^ a b c Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
13. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)