disprove

«disprove» in Mova's school dictionary: false by giving facts or evidence — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples.

part of speech

verb (disprove, disproves, disproved, disproving; past participle disproved or disproven)

meaning for a pupil

1) To show that an idea or statement is false by giving facts or evidence. tree →

2) (maths and science) To show a rule does not always work, often by finding one counterexample. tree →

sense in the lessons

In science, experiments can disprove an idea (a hypothesis); a good scientist changes their mind when the evidence disproves them. In maths, one counterexample disproves a rule: «All odd numbers are prime» is disproved by 9. In arguments and debates, you try to disprove the other side's claims with evidence.

examples

• The experiment disproved the idea that heavy things fall faster. tree →
• One example can disprove a rule in maths. tree →
• The number 9 disproves the claim that all odd numbers are prime. tree →
• No one could disprove his story. tree →
• Galileo helped disprove old ideas about the sky. tree →
• The detective used the CCTV to disprove the alibi. tree →

note

Opposite: «prove». «Disproved» and «disproven» are both fine as past participles. Proving something is true usually needs much more than disproving it.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «disprove» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.