verifiabilityn.

a1881 A. Barratt Physical Metempiric (1883) p. xxv I cannot believe that the test of sensible verifiability will ever satisfy the higher longings..of humanity.

1893 F. W. L. Adams New Egypt 234 Doubts..as to the verifiability of that conception.

1936 A. J. Ayer Lang., Truth & Logic i. 31 Every empirical hypothesis must be relevant to some actual, or possible, experience, so that a statement which is not relevant to any experience is not an empirical hypothesis, and accordingly has no factual content. But this is precisely what the principle of verifiability asserts.

1936 M. Schlick Gesammelte Aufsätze (1938) xiv. 348 When we speak of verifiability we mean logical possibility of verification.

1939 I. Berlin in Proc. Aristotelian Soc. XXXIX. 225 The thesis which I shall try to establish is that the principle of verifiability or verification after playing a decisive rôle in the history of modern philosophy..leads to wholly untenable consequences.

1951 H. Reichenbach in Feigl & Brodbeck Readings Philos. of Sci. (1953) 93 The verifiability theory of meaning lays down rules for the construction of meaningful expressions.

1967 Encycl. Philos. VIII. 241/1 We shall understand the verifiability principle as claiming that the cognitive meaning..of a sentence is to be determined by reference to the verifiability..of the statement expressed by the sentence.