credulity

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English credulite,^[2][3] borrowed from Middle French credulite, modern crédulité,^[4][5][6] or directly borrowed from Latin crēdulitās (“trustfulness, readiness to believe”).^[4][5] The French word is recorded in Old French from the 12th century in Etymonline's dating, the 13th in the OED's.^[6][4] The Latin noun is formed from crēdulus (“believing easily, trustful”),^[6][7][3] from crēdō (“to believe”).^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Belief, credence, chiefly in the phrase give credulity to, to believe: before 1439, in Lydgate's Fall of Princes.^[4][2] Etymonline dates the sense "faith, belief" to the early 15th century.^[6]

Semantic evolution

The word first meant belief or faith in general.^[8][2] From 1532, in Thomas More, it meant readiness to believe, and by 1547 too great a readiness, a disposition to believe on weak grounds;^[4] Etymonline dates this sense, especially of believing absurd or impossible things, to the 1540s.^[6] By 1548 a credulity could also be a credulous belief.^[4] Johnson (1755) defined it as "easiness of belief; readiness of credit", quoting Sidney.^[9] The disapproving sense is now the usual one, as in modern French, where the word usually means naive belief.^[8][4]

Timeline

• before 1439 – belief, credence, in give credulity to.^[4][2]
• 1532 – readiness to believe.^[4]
• 1547 – too great a readiness to believe, on weak or insufficient grounds.^[4][6]
• 1548 – an instance of credulity; a credulous belief.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. Readiness to believe something on slight or uncertain evidence; gullibility: The scam relied on the credulity of its victims.^[10][5][4]
2. strain credulity: to be hard to believe.^[5]
3. An instance of credulity; a credulous belief.^[4][5]

Word family

• incredulity
• overcredulity

Related words

• credulous
• incredulous
• credo
• creed
• credence
• credit
• credential

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
10. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins