Credence is belief that something is true. Give credence to, lend credence, gain credence.
It is almost always in a fixed phrase: giving or lending credence to a claim means treating it as worth believing, and that is a weaker commitment than believing it. The word describes what an audience grants rather than what a claim deserves. Note credible, credit, creed, all from the Latin credere, to believe.
1nouncredenceBelief that something is true.
“The new evidence gave credence to her story.”
credence is a belief.
Medieval Latin credentia comes from credere, to believe. Credit, creed and credible come from the same believing.
Proto-Indo-European
*ḱerd-
Latin
crēdēns
Medieval Latin
crēdentia — belief, faith
Old French
credence
Middle English
credence
English, today
credence
Built from
From Middle English credence, from Old French credence, from Medieval Latin crēdentia (“belief, faith”), from Latin crēdēns, present active participle of crēdō (“loan, confide in, trust, believe”). Compare French croyance, French créance, Italian credenza, Portuguese crença, Romanian credință, Spanish creencia. a doublet of credenza.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA