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Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. v. To bring by the use of argument or evidence to firm belief or a course of action. See Synonyms at persuade.
  2. v. Obsolete To prove to be wrong or guilty.
  3. v. Obsolete To conquer; overpower.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. To persuade or satisfy by argument or evidence; cause to believe in the truth of what is alleged; gain the credence of: as, to convince a man of his errors, or to convince him of the truth.
  2. To evince; demonstrate; prove.
  3. To refute; show to be wrong.
  4. To overpower; conquer; vanquish.
  5. To convict; prove or find guilty.
  6. Synonyms Convince, Persuade. To convince a person is to satisfy his understanding as to the truth of a certain statement; to persuade him is, by derivation, to affect his will by motives; but it has long been used also for convince, as in Luke xx. 6, “they be persuaded that John was a prophet.” There is a marked tendency now to confine persuade to its own distinctive meaning.

Wiktionary

  1. v. To make someone believe, or feel sure about something, especially by using logic, argument or evidence.
  2. v. To overcome, conquer, vanquish.
  3. v. To confute (someone); to prove (someone) wrong; to overcome (someone) in argument.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. v. To overpower; to overcome; to subdue or master.
  2. v. To overcome by argument; to force to yield assent to truth; to satisfy by proof.
  3. v. To confute; to prove the fallacy of.
  4. v. To prove guilty; to convict.

WordNet 3.0

  1. v. make (someone) agree, understand, or realize the truth or validity of something

Etymologies

  1. Latin convincere, to prove wrong : com-, intensive pref.; see com- + vincere, to conquer; see weik-3 in Indo-European roots.

Examples

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‘convince’ has been looked up 1568 times, loved by 2 people, added to 9 lists, and has a Scrabble score of 15.