credulous

UK/ˈkɹɛd͡ʒələs/US/ˈkɹɛd͡ʒələs/

adjectiveC2Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #14,991 of 15,258neutral

Credulous means ready to believe far too easily. A credulous audience.

It is a criticism and a mild one, since credulity is a fault of trust rather than of sense. Keep it apart from credible, which describes what can be believed rather than who believes it.

Definitions of credulous

1adjectivecredulousReady to believe far too easily.C2
“The whole scheme depended on finding enough credulous investors.”

credulous is a quality.

Where it comes from

Latin credulus comes from credere, to believe.

Proto-Indo-European
*ḱerd-
Latin
crēdulus — that easily believes a thing, credulous
English, today
credulous

Built from

crēdō · Latin — to believe

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

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

credulous in the wild

Skeptics explain poltergeists as juvenile tricksters fooling credulous adults.
Poltergeist
However, RSPK was never accepted by mainstream science and skeptics have described Roll as a credulous investigator.
William G. Roll
More recent scholars have emended the too credulous reliance on Avienius' accuracy of his editor, the historian-archaeologist Adolf Schulten.
Ora maritima
The horn is sometimes traded by low caste people, though it is thought that they are in fact pieces of deer antlers sold to the credulous.
Jackal's horn
Superstition in Judaism refers to the credulous beliefs in the supernatural present in Judaism and Jewish culture.
Superstition in Judaism

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.

Related words

the crēdō family

incredible incredibly

credulous — used about once every 159,543 pages · #14,991 · point at the bar for the others

credulity

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