Unproven means not yet shown to be true, effective, or reliable through evidence or experience. When a new medicine is unproven, scientists haven't yet tested it enough to know if it actually works. When a basketball player is unproven, coaches aren't sure yet whether she'll perform well in real games, even if she looked good in practice.

The word doesn't necessarily mean something is false or bad. An unproven idea might turn out to be brilliant, but right now there's not enough evidence to know for sure. Scientists might have an unproven theory about dinosaurs that could be correct, but they need to find more fossils to confirm it. A new technology might seem promising but remains unproven until people actually use it successfully.

You'll often hear this word in contexts where evidence matters: medicine, science, business, or sports. An unproven claim is a statement someone makes without backing it up with facts or data. An unproven method is a way of doing something that hasn't been tested enough to know if it really works.

The opposite of unproven is proven or established. Once something becomes proven, people have demonstrated through repeated testing or experience that it works.