Belief definitions and example sentences on Wordnik

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Definitions (15)

American Heritage Dictionary (4)

noun The mental act, condition, or habit of placing trust or confidence in another: My belief in you is as strong as ever.
noun Mental acceptance of and conviction in the truth, actuality, or validity of something: His explanation of what happened defies belief.
noun Something believed or accepted as true, especially a particular tenet or a body of tenets accepted by a group of persons.

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Century Dictionary (8)

Confidence reposed in any person or thing; faith; trust: as, a child's belief in his parents. To make the worthy Leonatus mad, By wounding his belief in her renown. Shak., Cymbeline, v. 5.
A conviction of the truth of a given proposition or an alleged fact, resting upon grounds insufficient to constitute positive knowledge. Knowledge is a state of mind which necessarily implies a corresponding state of things; belief is a state of mind merely, and does not necessarily involve a corresponding state of things. But belief is sometimes used to include the absolute conviction or certainty which accompanies knowledge. Neither do I labor for a greater esteem than may in some little measure draw a belief from you, to do yourself good, and not to grace me. Shak., As you Like it, v. 2. Belief admits of all degrees, from the slightest suspicion to the fullest assurance. Reid. He [James Mill] uses the word belief as the most general term for every species of conviction or assurance; the assurance of what is before our eyes, as well as of that which we only remember or expect; of what we know by direct perception, as well as of what we accept on the evidence of testimony or of reasoning. J. S. Mill. By a singular freak of language we use the word belief to designate both the least persistent and the most persistent coherence among our states of consciousness,—to describe our state of mind with reference both to those propositions of the truth of which we are least certain, and to those of the truth of which we are most certain. J. Fiske, Cosmic Philos., I. 61.
Persuasion of the truth of a proposition, but with the consciousness that the positive evidence for it is insufficient or wanting; especially, assurance of the truth of what rests chiefly or solely upon authority. In this sense, the word sometimes implies that the proposition is admitted as only probable. It sometimes implies that the proposition is admitted as being so reasonable that it needs no proof. Sometimes used for religious faith. Knowledge and belief differ not only in degree but in kind. Knowledge is a certainty founded upon insight; belief is a certainty founded upon feeling. The one is perspicuous and objective: the other is obscure and subjective. Sir W. Hamilton, Lectures on Logic, xxvii. One in whom persuasion and belief Had ripened into faith, and faith become A passionate intuition. Wordsworth, Excursion, iv. They [women] persuade rather than convince, and value belief rather as a source of consolation than as a faithful expression of the reality of things. Lecky, Europ. Morals, II. 381.

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Examples (43)

Optimism is sometimes characterized as a belief, an intellectual posture. — Al Gore's new thinking on the climate crisis
This belief is anti-American, un-conservative, and logically flawed. — LewRockwell.com
Fried said the belief was the child would have been fine breathing on his own for about an hour. — KITV.com - Local New
Mix in politics and and a belief that their belief is the only one that is acceptable. — Propeller Most Popular Stories
Of course this belief is an illusion, but the characteristic feature of a boom is precisely that people throw any critical considerations overboard. — Mises Dailies

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faith · opinion · religion · conviction · idea · tradition · sentiment · conception · attitude · hope

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 (2)

American Heritage Dictionary (1)

Middle English bileve, alteration (influenced by bileven, to believe) of Old English gelēafa; see leubh- in Indo-European roots.

Century Dictionary (1)

Early modern English beleef, beleeve, from Middle English beleve, beleafe, with prefix be- (as in believe, q. v.), parallel with the earlier leve, by apheresis for ileve, from Anglo-Saxon gelcáfa = Old Saxon gilōbho = Dutch geloof = Middle Low German gelōve, gelōf = Old High German giloubo, Middle High German geloube, German glaube, masculine, = Gothic (Moesogothic) galaubeins, feminine, belief, from galaubs, dear, valuable: see believe.

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