SYNONYMS AND RELATED EXPRESSIONS
plausible
adjective
Seeming reasonable or believable, though not established as true.
Local English device voice, when available. This is not a recorded dictionary pronunciation.
Apparently believable
Closest synonyms
Related words and expressions
These extend or explain the idea and may require a different sentence structure.
Usage distinction
Return to topPlausible describes an appearance of reasonableness. Possible is weaker, and a convincing explanation may still turn out to be false.
CHECK THE MEANING IN CONTEXT
See plausible in use
She offered a plausible explanation for the discrepancy.
One student's explanation remained nebulous: the new page supposedly worked because it had a more natural flow, but he could not identify what that phrase described. Leila offered a more plausible possibility, suggesting that the larger separation between titles might have helped readers distinguish entries.
Compare an alternative with the original word in each passage. Shared meanings do not make every pair interchangeable.
Synonym reference scope and sources
The groups distinguish the senses selected for this study entry. Closest synonyms and broader related expressions have separate labels. The listed sources support lexical selection; not every phrase is a direct quotation from a source.
How the synonym reference was prepared / WordNet 3.0 license