probate
PROH-bayt · noun
Origin
Probate comes from Middle English probate, from Latin probatus, the past participle of probare, "to test, examine, judge of."
This is Curio: one word's origin story, every morning. No feed, no backlog.
One short email each morning. Free; stop anytime. See a sample →
Journey
The word carried its Latin sense of examining and judging into English, where it settled into the specific legal task of officially testing whether a will is valid.
Related words
It shares its root with probe and prove — both descend from the same Latin verb probare, meaning to test or demonstrate as true.
More words
Nearby, A–Z