a. Also 6–7 fallable. [ad. late L. fallibilis, f. fallĕre to deceive: see -BLE. Cf. F. faillible.
The L. word appears in Papias (11th c.) with the active sense ‘deceitful’; in late med.L. it has the passive sense ‘deceivable.’]
1. Of persons or their faculties: Liable to be deceived or mistaken; liable to err.
1430. Lydgate, Chronicle of Troy, I. vi.
| But I suppose her connyng was fallyble, | |
| And doubtles as me semeth incredible. |
1638. Of Penitential Confession, vii. (1657), 135. The Priest is constituted a Judge in such cases; that peradventure is true, but then he is fallible, and often erring in judgment.
1699. Burnet, 39 Art., xxxiii. (1700), 364. Unless it is certain that the Church which has so decreed, cannot err, it is a bold assuming of an Authority to which no fallible Body of men can have a Right.
1763. Johnson, in Boswell, Life (1831), I. 391. A fallible being will fail somewhere.
1855. Milman, Lat. Chr. (1864), V. IX. ii. 206. Yet such was the Papal power in these times: often, no doubt, on the side of justice and humanity, too often on the other; looking to the interests of the Church alone, assumed, but assumed without ground to be the same as those of Christendom and mankind; the representative of fallible man rather than of the infallible God.
1881. W. Collins, The Black Robe, I. iii. 142. These rebuffs are wholesome reminders of his fallible human nature, to a man who has occupied a place of high trust and command.
2. Of rules, opinions, arguments, etc.: Liable to be erroneous, unreliable.
a. 1420. Hoccleve, De Regimine Principum, 2867.
| Thus was it done to bryng in memorie | |
| That he was but a man corruptible, | |
| And that this worldes joye is transitorie, | |
| And the truste on it slipir and fallible. |
1534. More, in Ellis, Orig. Lett., I. 117, II. 52. The fallible opinion … of lightsome chaungeable peple.
c. 1555. Hartsfield, Divorce Hen. VIII. (1878), 164. This argument … is but a fallable argument.
1603. Shaks., Meas. for M., III. i. 170. Do not satisfie your resolution with hopes that are fallible.
1643. Sir T. Browne, Relig. Med., i. 23. The … fallible discourses of man upon the word of God.
1677. W. Hubbard, Narrative, II. 1. How much soever it be valued by them that know nothing thereof, but by the uncertain and fallible reports of such as have only sailed by the country, or viewed some of the rivers and havens, but never passed through the heart of the continent.
1736. Butler, Anal., II. viii. 393. The rules … of preserving health … are not only fallible and precarious.
1851. Herschel, Stud. Nat. Phil., III. iii. 286. A slow and painful process if rightly gone into, and a very fallible one if only partially executed.
† b. Not determinable with certainty. Obs. rare.
1664. Power, Experimental Philosophy, III. 166. This Angle of Variation being quite fallible, and alwayes variable, his other two Angles will prove nothing at all.
† 3. Fallacious, delusive. Obs. rare.
1559. Morwyng, trans. The Treasure of Euonymus, 176. Suche waters vex the bodies, and make a fallible image of youth.
4. quasi-sb. One who is fallible. rare.
1705. Hickeringill, Priest-cr., Wks. (1716), 79. And yet the Pope Pius V. was not Infallible; for though he deprived and desposed Her [Queen Elizabeth], and endeavour’d to have her murther’d, yet he over-lived this Infallible Fallible.
1846. G. S. Faber, Lett. Tractar. Secess. Popery, 164. All these fallibles are added up together in one sum which shall collectively constitute the Church.
Hence Fallibleness = FALLIBILITY.
1648. Hammond, To Ld. Fairfax, 19. The weaknesse and falliblenesse of these few principles.
1730–6. in Bailey (folio).
