Proof

1.

Evidence, considered as sufficient to convince.

2.

Convincing effect of evidence; establishment of a fact to the satisfaction of the mind, by documents or testimony of witnesses. Judge Greenleaf very judiciously advises that "evidence" should be used for the various means of producing conviction, and "proof" reserved for the result of evidence. (1 Greenl. Ev. § 1.) But in many connections, proof, as used not only in current parlance, but in statutes and decisions, appears as equivalent of evidence, or rather of convincing, satisfactory evidence. Proofs (plu.) often appears as the aggregate or mass of the evidence adduced in a cause; thus it may be said that a cause was noticed for hearing on the pleadings and proofs, that on all the proofs the plaintiff was held not entitled to recover, and the like. A statute requiring proof calls for competent legal evidence. It excludes testimony of an incompetent witness.

Hill v. Hunt, 20 N. J. L. 476; Stanley v. Homer, 24 Id. 511; Brown v. Hinchman, 9 Johns. 75.

By the "satisfactory proof" required by a statute, in order to authorize a justice of the peace to issue an attachment, is meant legal evidence, and not the creditor's oath.

Van Steenbergh v. Kortz, 10 Johns. 167.

Proof, in Scotch law, corresponds to evidence in English law; and to lead proof is to produce evidence.

Paterson.

Proof of debt. The formal establishment, by a creditor, of a debt due to him from an insolvent estate, usually under the bankrupt laws; but also against a deceased person or a partnership or company in liquidation. Proof of deed. This phrase has, in the United States, a technical sense different from that naturally suggested, of any satisfactory evidence of the existence of the instrument. By what are known as recording acts (in probably all the states), deeds, mortgages, &c., which are not recorded are subject to rights of a subsequent purchaser or incumbrancer in good faith and without notice; and to entitle an instrument to be placed on record the execution of it must be formally certified by an authorized officer, either on a personal acknowledgment by the grantor, or on testimony of a subscribing witness. The phrase, proof of a deed, when used with relation to this proceeding, imports that, instead of the grantor's acknowledging the execution in person, the subscribing witness attended before the commissioner, justice, or notary, and testified to the authenticity and sufficiency of the execution. It may mean either the testimony thus given, or the certificate which, by custom, the officer indorses on the deed, showing that its genuineness and right to be recorded was thus established. Proof of will. This signifies the formal establishment before the court or officer having charge of estates of the genuineness of the will; or sometimes his certificate admitting the will to operation. It is used interchangeably with probate, q. v.