prove, preeve, preoven, preve, prieve

t. t. & i. [O. Fr. prover, pruver (Fr. prouver ), from Lat.probo to test, try, or prove the good quality of anything; prob us good, excellent; A. S. prófian; Dut. proeven; Icel. prófa; Sw. profva; Dan. prove; Ger. proben, probiren, prüfen; Sp. probar; Port. provar; Ital. provare.] A. Transitive: I. Ordinary Language: 1. To test or try by an experiment, in order to ascertain the quality of, according to a certain standard; to make trial of; to bring to the test. (Lit. & fig .) (1 The . v. 21.) 2. To experience; to gain personal experience of; to try by suffering, encountering, or pa ing through. 3. To evince; to show by argument, reasoning, or testimony; to establish, or ascertain as truth, reality, or fact; to demonstrate. "If on the Book itself we cast our view, Concurrent heathens prove the story true." Dryden: Religio Laici, 147. 4. To establish the authenticity or validity of; as, to prove debts in bankruptcy: to obtain probate of; as, to prove a will. [PROBATE.] II. Arith .: To show or ascertain the correctne of, as by a farther calculation; thus in addition the result may be proved by subtraction, and in multiplication by division. B. Intransitive: 1. To make trial; to try, to e ay. 2. To be found by experience or trial; to have its qualities ascertained by experience or trial. 3. To be ascertained by the event or result; to turn out to be. "Lest on the threshing floor his hopeful sheaves Prove chaff." Milton: P. L. , iv. 985. 4. To make certain; to have or attain certain proof or demonstration. 5. To succeed. "If the experiment proved not, it might be pretended, that the beasts were not killed in the due time." -Bacon . * To prove masteries: To make trial of skill; to try for the mastery. *prove, s . [PROOF.] make like, to a imilate. (Gesenius.) It was there- fore to be expected that the book of Proverbs would not consist exclusively of proverbs properly so called; nor does it. For instance, ch ii. is not a series of detached sayings, but a didactic treatise. Dr. Otto Zöckler ( Prov . Solomon (ed. Aiken), pp. 35-37) divides the Book into five leading portions: (1) Introductory (i. 7-ix. 18); (2) original nucleus of the collection, genuine Proverbs of Solomon (x. 1-xxii. 16); (3) additions made before Hezekiah's day (xxii. 17-xxiv. 34); (4) gleanings by the men of Hezekiah (xxv.-xxix.); (5) the Supplements (xxx.- xxx i.), the first being the words of Agur (xxx.), and the second the words of Lemuel, with the poem in praise of the matron (xxx i.). Chapter xxx i. 10-31 constitutes an alphabetical acrostic. Chapters i.-xxix. are generally attributed to Solomon, who was "wiser than all men," and "spake 3,000 prov- erbs" (1 Kings iv. 31, 32), which do not seem to have been founded solely on his own experience, but on the shrewd observation of the nation at large (i. 6). The collection made under Hezekiah repeats many proverbs which appeared in the earlier one. The lives of Agur and of King Lemuel's mother, and the dates of the two appendices as- cribed to them, are unknown. The New Testament directly quotes from this book in very many in- *prov-end, *prov-ende, s. [PROVAND, s.] prov-en-der, *prov-en-dre, subst . [From Mid. Eng. prouende (three syllables), from Fr. provende , from Lat. præbend a ; Dut. provande .] [PREBEND,