plausibility

plural plausibilities

1. countableobsoleteuncountableThe quality of deserving applause, praiseworthiness; something worthy of praise.First known use 16th–17th c.

   integrity, fidelity, and other gracious plausibilities

   1668, David Lloyd, Memories of the Lives, Actions, Sufferings & Deaths of Those Noble, Reverend, and Excellent Personages that Suffered […] for the Protestant Religion

2. archaiccountableuncountableThe appearance of truth, especially when deceptive; speciousness.First known use 17th c.

   Plausibility, I know, can only be unmasked by shewing the absurdities it glosses over, and the simple truths it involves with specious errors.

   1790, Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Men

3. countableuncountableA plausible statement, argument etc.First known use 17th c.

   She too must shimmer through the gloom o' the grave, / Come and confront me— […] / Striking me dumb, and helping her to speak, / Tell her own story her own way, and turn / My plausibility to nothingness!

   1869, Robert Browning, “XI. Guido.”, in The Ring and the Book. […], volume IV, London: Smith, Elder and Co., →OCLC, page 164, lines 1680–1681 and 1685–1687

4. countableuncountableThe fact of being believable; believability, credibility.First known use 18th c.

   The question of the plausibility of the counter-factual is seen as key in all three discussions of allohistorical fiction (as it is in Demandt's and Ferguson's examinations of allohistory) (cf. Rodiek 25–26; Ritter 15–16; Helbig 32).

   2014 October 14, David Malcolm, “The Great War Re-Remembered: Allohistory and Allohistorical Fiction”, in Martin Löschnigg, Marzena Sokolowska-Paryz, editors, The Great War in Post-Memory Literature and Film, Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG., →ISBN, page 173