In German, both “proof“ and “evidence“ translate to “Beweis“ which only has one single meaning – if something is “bewiesen“ then it is true and a fact. In English, I see the word “evidence“ used a lot for stuff that is obviously neither true nor fact. I’ve looked it up and don’t really see a difference between the meanings of “proof“ and “evidence“ – can anyone please ELI5?
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If you’ve got *proof* of something, that implies that it’s definitely true.
Evidence suggests that something is true, but doesn’t prove it.
If I have proof that you killed someone, then you definitely killed them. If I have evidence you killed someone, then it’s more likely to be you than it was before, but it could still be someone else. Like, say, if your fingerprints are found at a crime scene, that’s evidence that you did the crime, because it means you were there, but it’s not proof, because you could have been there for innocent reasons. Whereas video of you committing the crime would be proof that you did it.
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