plausibele

Plausibele is the inflected attributive form of the Dutch adjective plausibel, meaning credible, plausible, or reasonable. It is used before a noun to express that something appears believable or likely given the available evidence. Common contexts include scientific writing, journalism, and everyday language when assessing explanations, hypotheses, or reasons. Examples include een plausibele verklaring, plausibele argumenten en plausibele resultaten.

In Dutch, plausibel is the base form, and when placed directly before a noun, it typically takes the -e ending to form plausibele. For plural nouns, the form remains plausibele, as in plausibele verklaringen. The word can also appear in fixed phrases such as "een plausibele kans" or "een plausibele aanpak." When used predicatively, however, the uninflected form plausibel is preferred: De verklaring is plausibel.

Etymology traces plausibel to Latin plausibilis, meaning “worthy of applause” or “praiseworthy,” and it entered Dutch through Romance-language intermediaries such as French plausible or directly from Latin. The sense evolved to denote credibility and reasonableness rather than mere popularity or praise, which is reflected in its current usage to describe explanations that hang together with the available facts, without asserting certainty.

Plausibele is thus a standard, widely used form in Dutch for describing the sophistication or credibility of an argument, hypothesis, or explanation. It remains distinct from stronger terms like overtuigend (compelling) or zeker (certain), signaling that something is reasonable but not definitively proven.