Probable or possible

[color=red]the probable cause of the fire or [color=red]the possible cause of the fire?

I find these two words very confusing. :stuck_out_tongue:

Thanks.

It’s all a question of degree!

‘probable’ is more likely than ‘possible’.

Look at the main points on a ‘scale of probability’:

impossible — possible — even chance — probable — definite

Of course, it is possible to use different labels to define those points, and it is also possible to add finer detail, but when you balance the chances of something happening around that centre point (even chance) then you can see that ‘the probable cause of the fire’ is an indication that the speaker is more confident that something is more likely to have been the cause than if they had said ‘the possible cause of the fire’.