''credulous'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260904120411-00-⌔

credulous - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Adjective

credulous (comparative more credulous, superlative most credulous)

• Excessively ready to believe things; gullible.
  • ✤ Synonyms: naive, unworldly; see also Thesaurus: gullible
  • ✤ […] purſued his vnneighbourly purpoſe in ſuch ſort: that hee being the ſtronger perſwader, and ſhe (belike) too credulous in beleeuing or elſe ouer-feeble in reſiſting, from priuate imparlance, they fell to action; and continued their cloſe fight a long while together, vnſeene and vvithout ſuſpition, no doubt to their equall ioy and contentment.¹
  • ✤ The doctor was a small, black, plump man with fuzzy hair and round, credulous eyes.²
• Believed too readily.
  • ✤ ‘Twas he possess’d me with your credulous death³
  • ✤ In the beginning of the ſixteenth century, John Major and Hector Boethius publiſhed their hiſtories of Scotland, the former a ſuccinct and dry vvriter, the latter a copious and florid one, and both equally credulous.⁴
  • ✤ The powerful mind of Aristotle, which led him to reject with disdain the credulous tales and fabulous stories of the age, can nowhere be traced in the writings of Pliny, whose works, on the contrary, abound in fables and in prodigies, at once manifesting that weakness of mind inseparable from credulity, or that disinclination to investigate truth, which is the sure mark of a secondary order of intellect.⁵
  • ✤ The media (and politicians) are replete with credulous stories about machine learning and AI, but these stories are often based on commercial claims.⁶

Etymology

Originated in 1576, borrowed from Latin crēdulus (“that easily believes a thing, credulous”), from crēdō (“to believe”).

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈkɹɛd͡ʒələs/, /ˈkɹɛdjələs/
  • Audio (Southern England): 🔊

Printed 2026-09-04.

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Footnotes

1. 1620, Giovanni Bocaccio, translated by John Florio, The Decameron, Containing an Hundred Pleaſant Nouels: Wittily Diſcourſed, Betweene Seuen Honourable Ladies, and Three Noble Gentlemen ‎${}^{[1]}$, Isaac Iaggard, Nouell 8, The Eighth Day: ↩

2. 1934 October, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], chapter 3, in Burmese Days, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, →OCLC: ↩

3. c. 1604–1626, doubtfully attributed to Francis Beaumont, John Fletcher, “The Faithful Friends”, in Henry[William] Weber, editor, The Works of Beaumont and Fletcher, in Fourteen Volumes: […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] F[rancis] C[harles] and J[ohn] Rivington; […], published 1812, →OCLC, Act IV, scene i, page 99: ↩

4. 1759, William Robertson, “Book I”, in The History of Scotland, during the Reigns of Queen Mary and of King James VI, till His Accession to the Crown of England. […], volume I, London: […] A[ndrew] Millar […], →OCLC, page 4: ↩

5. 1834, William Swainson, A Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural History (Cabinet Cyclopedia), pages 8–9: ↩

6. 2020, David Spiegelhalter, “Should We Trust Algorithms?”, in Harvard Data Science Review, volume 2, number 1, →DOI, page 2: ↩