confirm
confirm (kən-fûrmʹ) verb, transitive
confirmed, confirming, confirms
1. To support or establish the certainty or validity of; verify.
2. To make firmer; strengthen: The recent airplane crash confirms my belief that stronger safety regulations are needed.
3. To make valid or binding by a formal or legal act; ratify.
4. To administer the religious rite of confirmation to.
[Middle English confirmen, from Old French confermer, from Latin cōnfirmāre : com-, intensive pref.. See com- + firmāre, to strengthen (from firmus, strong).]
confirmabilʹity noun
confirmʹable adjective
confirmʹatory (-fûrʹmə-tôrē, -tōrē) adjective
confirmʹer noun
Synonyms: confirm, corroborate, substantiate, authenticate, validate, verify. These verbs all mean to affirm the truth, accuracy, or genuineness of something. Confirm generally implies removal of all doubt about something considered uncertain or tentative: "We must never make experiments to confirm our ideas, but simply to control them" (Claude Bernard). Corroborate refers to strengthening or supporting something, such as a statement, by means of the evidence of another: The witness is expected to corroborate the plaintiff's testimony. To substantiate is to establish something by presenting substantial or tangible evidence: "one of the most fully substantiated of historical facts" (James Harvey Robinson). Authenticate implies the removal of doubt about the genuineness of something by the act of an authority or the testimony of an expert: The museum made the mistake of accepting the painting before it had been authenticated. Validate usually implies formal action taken to give legal force to something (validate a deed of sale) but can also refer to establishing the validity of something, such as a theory, claim, or judgment (The divorce validated my parents' original objection to the marriage). Verify implies proving by comparison with an original or with established fact: The bank refused to cash the check until the signature was verified.