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certify

UK/ˈsɜː.tɪ.faɪ/US/ˈsɝ.tɪ.faɪ/
verbB2+Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #10,610 of 15,258leans writtenformal · an editor’s judgement

Other forms: certified, certifying, certifies

To certify is to state officially and in writing that something is so. A signature, and somebody's professional reputation behind it.

It is used about documents, qualifications, deaths and buildings, so a doctor certifies a death and an engineer certifies that a structure is safe. The noun certificate is the document produced and certification is the process. There is a dated and offensive sense about mental health, since certifying somebody meant committing them to an institution, and calling somebody certifiable is an insult from that.

Seeris · CC BY-SA 4.0

Definitions of certify

  1. 1verbcertifyTo declare officially in writing that something is true.B2+

    “An engineer will have to certify the work.”

Where it comes from

  1. Old French

    certefier — confirm, assure, make certain

  2. English, today

    certify

From Old French certefier (“confirm, assure, make certain”). Compare French certifier.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Man Called Ove

First appears in chapter 34 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

certify in the wild

  • In many heraldic traditions, only a king of arms has the authority to grant armorial bearings and sometimes certify genealogies and noble titles.

    King of arms

  • The certifying body can be either a state authority or an independent private company.

    Certification

  • American Board of Medical Genetics, founded in 1981, to certify practitioners in human genetics.

    American Society of Human Genetics

  • WOBC is designed to certify warrant officers as technically and tactically competent to serve in a designated military occupation specialty.

    Warrant Officer Basic Course

  • The Department of Homeland Security, FBI and Director of National Intelligence unanimously certify to Congress that the refugee not such a threat.

    American SAFE Act of 2015

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.