Claim Verification: "The phrase "rule of thumb" originated from an old English law that allowed a man to beat his wife with a stick no thicker than his thumb." — Disproved

Automated fact-verification of the claim: "The phrase "rule of thumb" originated from an old English law that allowed a man to beat his wife with a stick no thicker than his thumb." Verdict: DISPROVED Key Findings No such English law ever existed. Four independent sources confirm that no English common law permitted wife-beating with a thumb-width stick (B1, B2, B3, B4). The phrase predates the false association by ~300 years. "Rule of thumb" first appeared in print in 1658/1685, while the wife-beating connection was first made in 1976 (B2). The Sir Francis Buller "Judge Thumb" story is unsubstantiated. There is no record that the 18th-century judge ever made the ruling attributed to him (B3, B4). All 4 citations were fully verified against their live source pages. Files proof.py — Re-runnable Python verification script proof.md — Structured proof report proof_audit.md — Full verification audit trail proof_narrative.md — Plain-language summary proof.json — Machine-readable structured data Generated by Proof Engine v0.10.0.针对声明“‘拇指规则（rule of thumb）’一词源自一项允许男子用不粗于拇指的棍棒殴打妻子的古老英国法律”开展的自动事实核查。 核查结论：已证伪（DISPROVED） 主要发现 1. 不存在此类英国法律。四份独立来源均证实，没有任何英国普通法允许以拇指宽度的棍棒殴打妻子（来源B1、B2、B3、B4）。 2. 拇指规则的出现时间比这一错误关联早约300年。拇指规则最早于1658/1685年见诸印刷出版物，而将其与殴打妻子行为关联的说法首次出现于1976年（来源B2）。 3. 弗朗西斯·布勒爵士（Sir Francis Buller）“拇指法官”的说法并无实据。没有记录显示这位18世纪法官曾作出归属于他的该项裁决（来源B3、B4）。 4. 全部4条引用均已通过其公开源页面完成完整核验。 相关文件 - `proof.py` —— 可重复运行的Python核验脚本 - `proof.md` —— 结构化核验报告 - `proof_audit.md` —— 完整核验审计追踪记录 - `proof_narrative.md` —— 通俗语言版本总结 - `proof.json` —— 机器可读的结构化数据 本报告由Proof Engine v0.10.0生成。