validation

n.The process of establishing truth or soundness (validity); see authentication.The process of declaring or rendering something to make it legally binding or to indicate it is in proper legal form.The process of ensuring something is suitable in a particular environment.A mark indicating that something is legally acceptable; see certification.

Citations

Illingworth 1996, p. 527 Verification and validation3 [is] a general term for the complete range of checks that are performed on a system in order to increase confidence that the system is suitable for its intended purpose. This range might include a rigorous set of functional tests, performance testing, reliability testing, and so on, in which case the term verification, validation and testing is more appropraite. Although a precise distinction is not always drawn, the verification aspects normally refers to completely objective checking of conforming to some well-defined specification, while the validation aspect normally refers to a somewhat objective assessment of likely suitability in the intended environment.