“Incredible” or “incredulous”?

“Incredible” and “incredulous” are similar words that have different meanings. They are often confused, even by native speakers of English.

“Incredible” means that something is unbelievable.

“Incredulous” means that someone doesn’t believe something.

Examples:

• That was an incredible story.
• She was incredulous when she heard that story.

“Incredible” and “incredible” are the negative forms of “credible” and “credulous”.

“Credible” means that something is believable.

“Credulous” means that someone believes things too easily.

Examples:

• He gave a credible explanation of why he was late.
• He is too credulous; he believes anything he is told.

In modern informal speech, “incredible” is often used to mean that something is very good – or very bad.

Examples:

• That’s an incredible cake.
• It was an incredible disaster.

A thought from Graham: Many years ago, I heard a television presenter describe something as “absolutely incredible and almost unbelievable”. I’ve been worried about that ever since I heard it!

_{Thanks to Chris for the suggestion}