Meaning

verb be shown or be found to be

verb establish the validity of something, as by an example, explanation or experiment

verb provide evidence for

originFrom Scottish English, as past participle of preve, a Middle English variant of prove – compare woven (from weave) and cloven (from cleave), both of which feature -eve → -oven. Preve died out in England, but survived in Scotland, where proven developed, initially in a legal context, as in “The jury ruled that the charges were not proven.” See usage notes for historical usage patterns. Earlier,…

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0