belie

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In hospital they are always professing to a recovery from fever that their pallid faces and enlarged spleens belie, and they take not kindly to any suggestion of invaliding These battalions of Kashmir Rifles, the Baluchis and the King's African Rifles have done more dirty bush fighting than any troops in this campaign.

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Definitions (12)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. transitive verb To give a false representation to; misrepresent: "He spoke roughly in order to belie his air of gentility” (James Joyce).
  2. transitive verb To show to be false; contradict: Their laughter belied their outward grief.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (7)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (2)

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Examples (50)

  • This celebrated astronomer does not belie, in this notice, his reputation for handling scientific subjects so as to make them clear to common apprehension. —  The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851
  • Cut the comedy, dear She leaned to him with her lips twisted and dried in their frenzy to belie his words, but with little else to indicate that her heart lay ticking against her breast like a clock that makes its hour in half-time Quit guying, Max, for God's sake! —  Every Soul Hath Its Song
  • In hospital they are always professing to a recovery from fever that their pallid faces and enlarged spleens belie, and they take not kindly to any suggestion of invaliding These battalions of Kashmir Rifles, the Baluchis and the King's African Rifles have done more dirty bush fighting than any troops in this campaign. —  Sketches of the East Africa Campaign
  • If the man of ordinary heart ostentatiously patronize the maxims of perfect charity, if the traditional priest or feeble pietist repeat the word God or recite the raptures of adoring bards, the sentences they maunder and the sentiments they belie are alike covered with rust; and in due time some Shelley will turn atheist in the interest of religion, and some Johnson in the interest of morality aver that he writes for money alone But Truth does not share the fortunes of her verbal body. —  The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, No. 57, July, 1862
  • Nor did his acts belie his words; but so long as he lived he was ever faithful to the code of Spartan chivalry; and at Leuctra, fighting in front of the king side by side with Deinon the polemarch, thrice fell or ever he yielded up his breath--foremost of the citizens amidst the foe. —  Hellenica
 

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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

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Used in the same contextWord Family

belie:   belied ·  belying ·  belies
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (3)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English bilien, from Old English belēogan, to deceive with lies; see leugh- in Indo-European roots.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (2)

  1. from Middle English belyen, beliggen, from Anglo-Saxon belicgan, bilicgan (= Old High German biligan, Middle High German biligen, German beliegen), from be-, about, by, + licgan, lie: see be- and lie, and cf. belay.
  2. from Middle English belyen, beleoʒen, from Anglo-Saxon beleógan (= OFries. biliaga = Old High German biliugan, Middle High German beliegen, German belügen), from be-, about, by, + leógan, lie: see be- and lie.
 

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/bəˈlaɪ/
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