Incredulous, incredible, whatever. . .
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I thought this use of incredulous in a recent Forbes article was a malapropism for incredible:
If you thought that my May 23 report, confirming the leak of login data totaling an astonishing 184 million compromised credentials, was frightening, I hope you are sitting down now. Researchers have just confirmed what is also certainly the largest data breach ever, with an almost incredulous 16 billion login credentials, including passwords, exposed. As part of an ongoing investigation that started at the beginning of the year, the researchers have postulated that the massive password leak is the work of multiple infostealers. [emphasis added]
And maybe it was.
But the OED glosses this usage as obsolete a1616-1750, tracing it back to Shakespeare:
Still, quick searches for "incredulous number", "incredulous amount", "incredulous price", etc., show that the usage is Out There today.
Wiktionary agrees with the OED, glossing this sense as "Difficult to believe; incredible", and flagging it as "largely obsolete, now only nonstandard".
Merriam-Webster also gives this meaning as sense 3, and offers this Usage Guide:
Can incredulous mean 'incredible'?:
Sense 3 was revived in the 20th century after a couple of centuries of disuse. Although it is a sense with good literary precedent—among others Shakespeare used it—it is widely regarded as an error resulting from confusion with incredible, and its occurrence in published writing is rare.
…with a longer discussion here.
And Merriam-Webster's Concise Dictionary of English Usage also goes into more detail:
Fred said,
June 20, 2025 @ 7:22 am
If Winder had meant "incredible," why call 16 billion login credentials *almost* incredible? Unless perhaps he means that the researchers who confirmed the breach are "almost incredible" in the sense of almost *not* credible, although that would be an odd swipe to take, in my opinion.
Yuval said,
June 20, 2025 @ 9:34 am
Fred: I'd say this is because incredulous.3 isn't exactly the same as incredible, or rather it's a yet-unbleached version of it. So while incredible is nowadays simply an intensifier (which is indeed weird to modify using almost), incredulous.3 retains the pristine semantics of "(actually) defying comprehension, must be a lie", which I agree that the 16-billion figure is just shy of.
Fred said,
June 20, 2025 @ 9:57 am
In that case, "unbelievable" might be a better contemporary sense, unless the author really had meant to question the credibility of the researchers.
Coby said,
June 20, 2025 @ 11:50 am
Considering that incredible, in ordinary parlance, no longer means 'hard to believe' but something more like 'extraordinary, amazing' (just as legendary no longer means 'related to legend'), perhaps the writer deliberately chose something that would be more likely to evoke the original sense.
Chas Belov said,
June 20, 2025 @ 1:40 pm
I don't believe I have a small vocabulary, but I can't remember ever using "incredulous" in my life. I do think if I saw it used in the same way as "incredible" I'd have to look twice and even then not be sure I grokked the sentence.
I don't recall using "incredible" either (prior to this post, of course), but don't have the same certainty about my non-use that I have with "incredulous."
Seonachan said,
June 20, 2025 @ 3:05 pm
I wonder if the choice of incredulous might have been influenced by "ridiculous", which could also describe the huge number of stolen credentials. That's where my mind went directly on reading it the first time.
Gregory Kusnick said,
June 20, 2025 @ 5:35 pm
I wonder if there are in-house style guides that blacklist specific words perceived by editors as trite or overused, thus forcing writers to reach for alternatives that suggest the forbidden word without actually meaning the same thing.
Or maybe it's a case of writers themselves shunning a well-used word, even when it's precisely on point, in favor of something more highfalutin (but perhaps not quite right), as a way of setting themselves apart from the crowd.
Rick Rubenstein said,
June 20, 2025 @ 6:12 pm
Pixar's The Incredibles was originally going to be titled "The Incredulouses. Absolutely true story.
stephen said,
June 20, 2025 @ 8:51 pm
Is anybody else annoyed when people use "Incredible" to mean "nice" as in, I had relatives over for Thanksgiving and it was incredible. Also, amazing. Also, fantastic, which used to be a reference to fantasy. Science fiction and fantasy are sometimes referred to as fantastic fiction, but not incredible fiction. Though there was a magazine called Amazing Stories.
Jon said,
June 21, 2025 @ 12:06 am
Recently I ordered a sandwich in a cafe, and the young man taking the order responded "Amazing". I was startled. It must have been an example of what Stephen is complaining about. "Nice" is of course itself one of those words whose meaning has changed out of all recognition.
Matth McIrvin said,
June 21, 2025 @ 3:45 am
I remember "incredulous" for "incredible" appearing in the 1980s as a humorous intensifier. I had a dormitory RA who used "that's incredulous!" as a sort of personal catchphrase, and it seemed like the malapropisn of it was part of the joke.
Bloix said,
June 21, 2025 @ 3:04 pm
We talked about incredible here about seven years ago.
https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=39209
Viseguy said,
June 21, 2025 @ 4:43 pm
Evidently the "-ulous" suffix has, historically, been productive, thanks its Latin ancestor "-ulus" and variants, often but by no means always implying "somewhat" or "a little". Incredibly (incredulously?), a casual search of OED headwords yields: acaulous, acidulous, angulous, antiscrofulous, arenulous, articulous, audaculous, austerulous, avidulous, barbatulous, bibulous, calculous, campanulous, carbunculous, carunculous, cautulous, cavernulous, cellulous, cerulous, circumnebulous, conaculous, corpusculous, corymbulous, crapulous, credulous, crepusculous, cubiculous, cumulous, cuniculous, curtipendulous, edentulous, emulous, epulous, exangulous, fabulous, faculous, fantabulous, febriculous, fibulous, filipendulous, fistulous, flocculous, flosculous, folliculous, foraminulous, funambulous, funipendulous, furunculous, garrulous, glandulous, globulous, granulous, gripulous, grumulous, gulous, guttulous, hamulous, hispidulous, immiraculous, incredulous, inemulous, iracundulous, irregulous, lobulous, loculous, maculous, mandibulous, masculous, meticulous, minutulous, miraculous, monoculous, monticulous, multangulous, musculous, nebulous, nodulous, obliquangulous, obstaculous, obstropulous, oraculous, orgulous, ostrobogulous, pabulous, papulous, patulous, pediculous, pendulous, perdulous, periculous, perridiculous, perspiculous, piaculous, pilulous, populous, preambulous, priestybulous, prominulous, prostibulous, pulverulous, pustulous, querulous, rabulous, rectangulous, ridiculous, rigidulous, rufulous, rugulous, sabulous, scaberulous, scabriusculous, scopulous, scripulous, scrobiculous, scrofulous, scrupulous, sedulous, siticulous, solidungulous, somniculous, spatulous, spectaculous, speculous, spinulous, stridulous, succulous, surculous, tabernaculous, tabulous, tetraplocaulous, tintinnabulous, tortulous, tremulous, tuberculous, tubulous, tumulous, turbulous, unbibulous, undulous, ungulous, unmiraculous, unnebulous, unpopulous, unridiculous, unscrupulous, untremulous, vagulous, vasculous, ventriculous, vermiculous, verminulous, vernaculous, vesiculous, viticulous, and volvulous.
Viseguy said,
June 21, 2025 @ 4:59 pm
Striking, isn't it, how many of the "-ulus" progeny are technical, archaic, obsolete, or rare. Which may help explain why "incredulous" can be problematiculous.
Viseguy said,
June 21, 2025 @ 5:14 pm
Striking absence: homunculous. Which would be an apt descriptor of people in power these days, if this were Existential Angst Log.
Tom said,
June 21, 2025 @ 7:27 pm
I think homunculus is usually spelled without the final "o".
Quickly skimming that list, it appears there are about 10 of those I've used–credulous is one of my favorite words, so useful in arguments–but more, many more, that look inviting. Searching on the word tabernaculous brings up a blog post that also uses the word "Seder-Masochism".
Philip Taylor said,
June 22, 2025 @ 4:44 am
I have a feeling (nothing more) that the suffices "-us" and "-ous" usually denote different parts of speech. For example, "tumulus", sb., (an ancient sepulchral mound, a barrow) and "tumulous", adj., (forming a tumulus; tumular).
Andrew Usher said,
June 22, 2025 @ 6:49 am
That is more than a 'feeling'; it is entirely correct, though the spellings are sometimes confused. However only a small number of '-us' or '-ous' words form such pairs; most do not, and the '-ous' ending for adjectives (originally from Latin -os-) has been generalised to replace other Latin endings, largely just the case marker (-us).
The original use of 'incredulous' was no doubt a mistake, and it is just the rarity of 'incredulous' in its proper sense that leads some to use it for 'incredible'. This sentence would make sense with either 'incredible' or 'unbelievable' (synonymous here); though 'ridiculous' can be used to describe amounts I would not expect to hear 'almost ridiculous' as there is no need to tone down a hyperbolic word. But "you almost can't believe this figure" is the clear meaning.
k_over_hbarc at yahoo.com
Viseguy said,
June 22, 2025 @ 4:23 pm
As others suggested, I meant it as an addition to the list of adjectives, meaning "homunculus-like" (no offense intended to homunculuses not aspiring to absolute power).
Ha, indeed, I've been to seders that became disputatious into the wee hours.
David Morris said,
June 22, 2025 @ 5:50 pm
In my job as a legal publishing editor I often refer to 'credible evidence'. I have pondered with a colleague whether the opposite of that is 'incredible evidence'.
David Marjanović said,
June 23, 2025 @ 6:37 am
…It hadn't occurred to me that incredible and unbelievable might not be exact synonyms anymore. I shouldn't be surprised.
(German unglaublich does have all the metaphorical meanings; it just hasn't outsourced them.)
Andrew Usher said,
June 23, 2025 @ 10:55 pm
Language, I think, doesn't prefer exact synonyms – if they can acquire different shades of meaning, they probably will. But this isn't an example. 'Fred', whom you were quoting, was not standing on very sound ground here – yes, 'incredible' could be read so as to question the researchers' credibility, but so could 'unbelievable', and the reason it likely wouldn't here has nothing to do with the exact word chosen.
David Morris:
If I had any cause to refer to the opposite of 'credible evidence', 'incredible evidence' would certainly come to mind.
Philip Taylor said,
June 24, 2025 @ 4:02 am
"If I had any cause to refer to the opposite of 'credible evidence', 'incredible evidence' would certainly come to mind" — to me, it would not. I would, I think, be forced to reverse the word order and write/say "the evidence is/was not credible".
Kris said,
June 24, 2025 @ 11:03 am
A number so large it almost makes one incredulous, would be the most generous way of parsing this clumsy writer's intention here, I think.
Is cumulous an actual word (not meant to refer to cumulus clouds)? Apparently it is a rare word referring to things that have been accumulated. I also have always taken fantabulous as some sort of jokey portmanteau and not an actual word. Dictionaries recognize it though. And some of those I think are just obsolete, like musculous, obstaculous, spectaculous, vasculous, and the others that are now suffixed -ular instead.
David L said,
June 24, 2025 @ 11:06 am
Now I'm imagining a lawyer introducing the case to a jury at the start of the trial, and concluding by saying "boy, do we have some incredible evidence to show that the defendant is totally not guilty."
Michael Vnuk said,
June 24, 2025 @ 5:35 pm
Speaking of words ending in 'us' for the noun and 'ous' for the adjective, 'phosphorus' and 'phosphorous' are often confused.
David Morris said,
June 27, 2025 @ 5:51 pm
Within days of posting my previous comment, I encountered 'incredible' four times in one legal document I was editing, though three of them also have 'not': "incoherent and incredible", "does not find it incredible that", " does not find that the evidence … to be incredible" (which is incorrect grammar) and "The circumstances … are not incredible".