reliable adj

1 worthy of reliance or trust; "a reliable source of information"; "a dependable worker" [syn: dependable] [ant: unreliable, unreliable]

2 conforming to fact and therefore worthy of belief; "an authentic account by an eyewitness"; "reliable information" [syn: authentic]

3 worthy of being depended on; "a dependable worker"; "an honest working stiff"; "a reliable source of information"; "he was true to his word"; "I would be true for there are those who trust me" [syn: dependable, honest, true(p)]

English

Pronunciation

• , /rɪˈlaɪəbəl/, /rI"laI@b@l/

Etymology

Adjective

1. Suitable or fit to be relied on; worthy of dependance or reliance; trustworthy.
   • Quotations

   A reliable witness to the truth of the miracles. --A. Norton.

   The best means, and most reliable pledge, of a higher object. --Coleridge.

   According to General Livingston's humorous account, his own village of Elizabethtown was not much more reliable, being peopled in those agitated times by unknown, unrecommended strangers, guilty-looking Tories, and very knavish Whigs. --W. Irving.

2. Of a communication protocol, in which a sent packet will reach its destination, even if it requires retransmission, or the sender will be told that it didn't.

Translations

• ttbc Dutch: betrouwbaar
• ttbc French: fiable, sûr
• ttbc Spanish: fiable
• ttbc Swedish: pålitlig
• ttbc Indonesian: Reliabel

Related terms

• reliability
• reliableness
• reliably
• reliance
• rely
• unreliable

In general, reliability (systemic def.) is the ability of a person or system to perform and maintain its functions in routine circumstances, as well as hostile or unexpected circumstances.

The IEEE defines it as ". . . the ability of a system or component to perform its required functions under stated conditions for a specified period of time."

Reliability may refer to:

• Reliability (statistics), of a set of data and experiments
• High reliability is informally reported in "nines"
• Reliabilism in philosophy and epistemology
• Data reliability, a property of some disk arrays in computer storage
• Reliability engineering ensures a system will be reliable when operated in a specified manner
• Reliability theory, as a theoretical concept, to explain biological aging and species longevity
• Reliability (computer networking), a category used to describe protocols

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