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The three words credible, creditable, and credulous all have something to do with belief or believability, but they are notsynonyms.
The adjective credible means believable, worthy, or trustworthy. (Incredible means unbelievable or extraordinary.)
The adjective creditable means worthy of praise or credit.
The adjective credulous means gullible or easily fooled--tending to trust or believe too readily.
(Incredulous means skeptical.)
Also see: Commonly Confused Words: Incredible and Incredulous.
Examples:
- "[S]peakers who make eye contact for more than half their speech are viewed as more credible and trustworthy."
(Cindy Griffin, Invitation to Public Speaking. Wadsworth, 2009) - "On a blustery day that March, Harry Chapman and ten other thirteen-year-olds ran a mile race, which necessitated circling the school playground eight times. He finished a creditable fourth, and loved long-distance running thereafter."
(Paul Bailey, Chapman's Odyssey. Bloomsbury, 2011)
- "Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones."
(Bertrand Russell)
Practice:
(a) "Having been a_____ person so recently, Colette was now cynical and sneery. She wondered how long it would be before Al initiated her into some fraud."
(Hilary Mantel, Beyond Black. Henry Holt, 2005)
(b) "To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be _____; to be _____ we must be truthful.
It is as simple as that."
(American journalist Edward R. Murrow)
(c) "Mrs. Chack's mind retains all those details with accuracy, which is a _____ performance at her age."
(Rex Stout, Not Quite Dead Enough, 1944)
Answers to Practice Exercises
Glossary of Usage: Index of Commonly Confused Words
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