Chunk: lend credence / weight to
Meaning & Usage
Lend credence / weight to means to make an argument, claim, hypothesis, or theoretical position seem more credible, believable, or substantiated by providing corroborating evidence, authoritative backing, or logical plausibility. In academic, legal, and analytical registers, it metaphorically imparts evidential substance (weight) or belief (credence) outward to a proposition.
🧲 Common Collocates
- Coordinate Head Nouns: lend credence to, lend weight to, lend credibility to, lend plausibility to, lend substance to, lend support to.
- Typical Subjects (Evidential Sources): clinical trials, empirical data, archaeological findings, eyewitness testimonies, statistical models, archival discoveries.
- Prepositional Complementation: Strictly requires to (lend credence / weight to + [claim / theory / hypothesis / allegation]).
- Degree Modifiers: lend significant credence to, lend considerable weight to, lend added weight to, lend little credence to.
💬 Contextual Examples
- Independent clinical trials have lent significant credence to the initial lab findings.
- The discovery of pre-colonial trading seals lent substantial weight to the hypothesis that trans-oceanic routes existed centuries earlier.
- Subsequent investigative reporting has lent further credence to allegations of internal accounting irregularities.
🎴 Interactive Web Practice
Practice 1: The recently unclassified diplomatic cables lend significant ______ to the historian's controversial thesis.
Answer:
credence (or weight) Practice 2: Corroborating testimonies from three independent observers lent considerable weight ______ the defendant's alibi.
Answer:
to Practice 3: The absence of reproducible data failed to ______ any credence to the research group's startling claims.
Answer:
lend 🔗 Knowledge Base Connections
- 🔑 Parent Node: Lend
- ⚖️ Related Discrimination: borrow-vs-lend