probation

From Middle French probation, from Old French probacion, from Latin probatio (“a trying, inspection, examination”), from probare, past participle probatus (“to test, examine”); see probate, probe, prove.

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˌpɹoʊˈbeɪʃən/

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• Rhymes: -eɪʃən

probation (countable and uncountable, plural probations)

1. A period of time when a person occupies a position only conditionally and may be removed if certain conditions are not met.

   You'll be on probation for first six months. After that, if you work out, they'll hire you permanently.

2. (law) A type of sentence where convicted criminals are permitted to continue living in a community but will automatically be sent to jail if they violate certain conditions.

   He got two years probation for robbery.

3. A testing period of time.
   • 1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, pages 109–110:

     A probation of long and shameful years must be gone through; each one with the endurance more bitter, suffering yet more intolerable, before the debtor can arrive at that system of reckless evasion which is the last stage of poverty.

4. (archaic) The act of testing; proof.
   • 1661, Robert Boyle, The Sceptical Chymist, page 20:

     And I shall proceed to consider the testimony of Experience, when I shall have first advertis'd You, that if Men were as perfectly rational as 'tis to be wish'd they were, this sensible way of Probation would be as needless as 'tis wont to be imperfect.

   • c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i], lines 148-156:

     And then it started like a guilty thing / Upon a fearful summons. I have heard, / The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn, / Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat / Awake the god of day; and, at his warning, / Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air / The extravagant and erring spirit hies / To his confine: and of the truth herein / This present object made probation.

• come on vacation, leave on probation
• probationary
• probation officer
• academic probation

• probate
• probe
• prove

• “probation”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “probation”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

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probation f (plural probations)

1. probation (especially religious)

• “probation”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.