'Credible' is Latin for 'worthy of belief' — from 'credere' (to trust), literally 'to place one's heart.'
Able to be believed; convincing; capable of persuading people that something will happen or succeed.
From Latin 'credibilis' (worthy of belief, trustworthy), an adjective formed from 'credere' (to believe, to trust, to entrust), which descends from PIE *kred-dheh1- — a compound of *kerd- (heart) + *dheh1- (to place, to set). In the original Proto-Indo-European conceptual world, belief was a physical act: you placed your heart upon something to signify absolute trust. This compound gave Sanskrit 'sraddha' (faith, trust, devotion — literally heart-placing), Old Irish 'cretim' (I believe), and Latin 'cor' (heart, via *kerd-) alongside 'credere.' The *kerd- element that makes up one half of 'credible' also underlies English 'heart' itself (via Proto-Germanic *herto), making
The word 'credible' and 'credulous' are often confused but describe opposite qualities. A 'credible' person is someone worthy of being believed — they are trustworthy. A 'credulous' person is someone who believes too easily — they are gullible. One word describes the object of trust; the other describes the person who trusts too readily. The German equivalent 'glaubwürdig' (believeworthy) makes the distinction clearer by building the word from native Germanic
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