[heipei]

Not a native speaker, but I thought that's what the difference between "proven" and "proofed" is. The latter is the type of mathematical proof you are referring to, the former the colloquial attribute of having been used successfully for that purpose.

[IIAOPSW]

A reasonable guess but ultimately wrong. "Proofed" is not a word, "proven" is the correct adverb form (as in, "In this paper it shall be proven that..."), "proved"/"proving"/"proves" is the correct verb (depending on tense), all these forms of "proof" can be used in a colloquial sense like you tried, but never in a technical setting where an actual mathematical proof might actually be presented. "Shows"/"demonstrates"/"suggests"/"evidences" all better fit your intended use case. The rules in English are arbitrary and the patterns are inconsistent and misleading (and therefore anyone who obsessively enforces said rules is a petty pedant doing it solely for the enjoyment of acting smarter than others).

[coldtea]

>"Proofed" is not a word

Well, it is. It means several things (but not what the parent guessed).

Among those:

- something having been proofread

- a yeast having been activated

- made something waterproof

[masklinn]

> A reasonable guess but ultimately wrong. "Proofed" is not a word

And if it were I’d certainly assume it was a reviewing / publishing concept related to proof copies and proofreading (as in, a proofed copy would have gone through proofreading and no error would’ve been found).

Not related to the logical concept.

[dagw]

"Proofed" is not a word

Well it is, but it has to with a baking technique rather than anything mathematical.

[coldtea]

It's also commonly usef for "having proofread", and "made waterproof".

[samatman]

No one has successfully connected proof (v) and prove (v) here, though the examples of the former are exhaustive in modern speech.

The difference is the two kinds of proving, one of which is vanishing from the language: the sense of testing something, practically, rather than by reason or evidence. A proof copy is when a type plate is prooved, the rising of dough prooves the culture's activity.

So these irregular noun-to-verb forms exist because proof has largely lost the second meaning.

[grncdr]

I’ve never seen “proofed” used as anything but a hyphenated suffix meaning “protected against”. E.g. sound-proofed.

It’s pretty normal to use “proved” in place of “observed” or “measured” in day-to-day speech though. Usually a few repeatable measurements are enough proof (evidence) for most people to consider something “proven”.

Edit: I forgot the proofread meaning pointed out by the sibling comment.

[tikhonj]

People don't generally use "proofed" like that—I would always use "proven" to talk about something that had a mathematical proof, and "proofed" only comes up in specialized areas like publishing (where it's used as the past tense of making a proof of something to be printed or as short for "proofread").

[gricardo99]

proofed is also used at times in a baking context, such as proofing dough (i.e. sufficiently risen due to maturity of the yeast culture)

Otherwise I agree, as a native english speaker I’m not familiar with it being used in engineering/mathematics contexts.

[bloak]

I use "proved" for mathematics. For me (middle-aged British) "proven" sounds a bit pompous and rhetorical, not the sort of language an honest down-to-earth mathematician would use.