Home / Words / verifyNo. 0328

verify

/ˈvɛrɪfaɪ/·verb

to check something against evidence or a source and confirm it is true or correct
Fig. 1 — A slip of paper rises to the card on file and lays itself over the original, stroke on stroke.
01Definition

To verify is to check something against evidence or a source and confirm it is true, accurate, or correctly done. It is a hands-on word: you verify an identity against a document, a figure against the raw data, a quotation against the original. From Latin verus, 'true', plus facere, 'to make' — literally to make sure of the truth. Where a claim merely asserts, verification goes and looks; a fact no one has checked remains, in careful writing, unverified rather than false.

02In use
  • iBorder officers verify each passport against the traveller standing in front of them.
  • iiAn independent lab was asked to verify the findings and substantiate the central claim.
  • iiiReporters could not verify the video, so the story ran with the word 'unverified' attached.
03Collocations
  • verify a claim
  • verify the results
  • verify your identity
  • verifiable evidence
  • independently verified

Family verification (noun) · verifiable (adjective) · unverified (adjective)

04Relations

=confirm, validate, substantiate, corroborate, authenticate

≠refute, disprove

06TOEFL & IELTS

A workhorse of academic integrity language: findings are verified, claims are independently verified, and 'verifiable evidence' is a phrase examiners read as precision. In TOEFL science passages verification is the checking step of the method; in essays, verify pairs naturally with substantiate — you verify a fact, substantiate an argument. Keep the hedge in mind: data can verify that something happened without proving why. Three syllables, stress up front: VER-i-fy.

07Asked
What is the difference between verify and validate?
They overlap in everyday use, but engineering splits them: verifying checks that a thing was done correctly against its specification; validating checks that it is the right thing for the real need. You verify a signature against the card on file — as in the scene above — while validating asks whether the whole form should pass at all. The pair is close enough that academic writing rewards using each precisely.
What is the difference between verify and confirm?
Verify means to check against evidence — an identity against a document, a figure against the source. Confirm means to remove remaining doubt about something already believed or arranged: you confirm a booking, a suspicion, an appointment. Verification does the looking; confirmation announces the result. A bank verifies your identity, then confirms your transfer went through.
What is the noun form of verify?
Verification — the process or the result of checking ('two-step verification', 'awaiting verification'). The adjective verifiable is the quiet star of the family: 'a verifiable claim' is one that could in principle be checked, and 'verifiable evidence' is a phrase academic writing rewards. Something not yet checked is unverified. There is no noun 'verifyment'.
What does 'verify your account' or 'verify your identity' mean?
It means proving you are who you claim to be by supplying evidence a system can check — a code sent to your phone, a document, a click on an email link. The tech sense is the core meaning miniaturized: a claim ('this is my account') held against a source that can confirm it. That is why the button says verify and not merely 'continue'.
Is it 'verify that' or 'verify if'?
Both are grammatical, with a nuance. Verify that introduces a claim being checked: 'verify that the address is current'. Verify whether (or if) introduces an open question: 'verify whether the address is current' — you do not yet assume it is. Verify also takes a plain object ('verify the address'); it never takes 'about'.
What does unverified mean?
Not yet checked against evidence — which is not the same as false. An unverified report may turn out perfectly true; the label only says nobody has held it against a source yet. News organizations use the word as a caution flag, and careful readers treat it as one. The gap between unverified and false is exactly the gap verification exists to close.