Definition of "evidence"

In our reasonings concerning matter of fact, there are all imaginable degrees of assurance, from the highest certainty to the lowest species of moral evidence. A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence.

1748, [David Hume], Philosophical Essays Concerning Human Understanding, London: […] A[ndrew] Millar, […]

We find material evidences of magical practices in the European caves of the Palæolithic age[.]

1936, Rollo Ahmed, The Black Art, London: Long, page 18

Drawings and pictures are more than mere ornaments in scientific discourse. Blackboard sketches, geological maps, diagrams of molecular structure, astronomical photographs, MRI images, the many varieties of statistical charts and graphs: These pictorial devices are indispensable tools for presenting evidence, for explaining a theory, for telling a story.

2012 March, Brian Hayes, “Pixels or Perish”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 2, page 106

For Lothian and Borders Police, the early-morning raid had come at the end one of biggest investigations carried out by the force, which had originally presented a dossier of evidence on the murder of Jodi Jones to the Edinburgh procurator-fiscal, William Gallagher, on 25 November last year.

2004 April 15, “Morning swoop in hunt for Jodi's killer”, in The Scotsman

infamous and perjured evidences

1822, [Walter Scott], Peveril of the Peak. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to IV), Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co.

He recapitulated the Sybil’s story word by word, with the air of a man who is cross-examining an evidence, and trying to make him contradict himself.

1820, [Charles Robert Maturin], Melmoth the Wanderer: A Tale. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Company, and Hurst, Robinson, and Co., […], page 53

That he was a great locomotive engineer, it would be foolish to deny or even to qualify; that he was also extremely pig-headed is fairly evidenced by David Joy, who in his 'Diaries' said that Stroudley always wanted his way 'to the last nut and bolt.'

1941 May, “Notes and News: William Stroudley”, in Railway Magazine, page 234

Elegant brick and stone buildings, with iron and glass canopies and decorative wooden scalloping and fencing—all evidencing care on the part of the architect to produce a pleasing, well-planned building—were submerged beneath a profusion of ill-conceived additions and camouflaged by vulgar paint schemes; and the original conception was lost.

1962 October, Brian Haresnape, “Focus on B.R. passenger stations”, in Modern Railways, pages 250–251

"And I think we can do better, and we have to do better, because we need to evidence why public ownership of the railways is going to work for the people who use it.

2022 April 6, Conrad Landin, “ScotRail in the public eye...”, in RAIL, number 954, page 39