Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To accept as true or real: Do you believe the news stories?
- v. To credit with veracity: I believe you.
- v. To expect or suppose; think: I believe they will arrive shortly.
- v. To have firm faith, especially religious faith.
- v. To have faith, confidence, or trust: I believe in your ability to solve the problem.
- v. To have confidence in the truth or value of something: We believe in free speech.
- v. To have an opinion; think: They have already left, I believe.
- idiom. believe (one's) ears To trust what one has heard.
- idiom. believe (one's) eyes To trust what one has seen.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To have faith or confidence. As to a person, to have confidence in his honesty, integrity, virtue, powers, ability, etc.; trust.
- To exercise trust or confidence; rely through faith: generally with on.
- To be persuaded of the truth of anything; accept a doctrine, principle, system, etc., as true, or as an object of faith: with in: as, “I believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints,” etc., Apostles' Crecd; to believe in Buddhism. See belief.
- To credit upon the ground of authority, testimony, argument, or any other ground than complete demonstration; accept as true; give credence to. See belief.
- To give credence to (a person making a statement, anything said, etc.).
- To expect or hope with confidence; trust.
- To be of opinion; think; understand: as, I believe he has left the city.
Wiktionary
- v. To think something is true without having proof or empirical evidence.
- v. To accept that someone is telling the truth.
- v. To accept as true.
- v. To have religious faith; to believe in a greater truth.
- v. To consider likely.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To exercise belief in; to credit upon the authority or testimony of another; to be persuaded of the truth of, upon evidence furnished by reasons, arguments, and deductions of the mind, or by circumstances other than personal knowledge; to regard or accept as true; to place confidence in; to think; to consider.
- v. To have a firm persuasion, esp. of the truths of religion; to have a persuasion approaching to certainty; to exercise belief or faith.
- v. To think; to suppose.
WordNet 3.0
- v. follow a credo; have a faith; be a believer
- v. judge or regard; look upon; judge.
- v. accept as true; take to be true
- v. be confident about something
- v. credit with veracity
Etymologies
- Middle English bileven, from Old English belȳfan, belēfan, gelēfan; see leubh- in Indo-European roots.
Examples
“_ Yes, yes, _said the other_, I believe she is: _But I believe_, said I, _You but taak'n all this while, for no Body mun do such things.”
“Doubt strikes at the root of Justice and of Love -- not the doubt that is the half-brother to Disbelief, but the doubt which wonders always and always if we believe most easily what we _want to believe_, and if our firmest conviction against such Belief is not, more than anything else, yet one more manifestation of what we desire so earnestly _to doubt_.”
“And while we believe that such efforts are praiseworthy for the reason that many persons must be first convinced in that way, still we feel that one must really _feel_ the truth of the doctrine from something within his own consciousness, before he will really _believe_ it to be truth.”
“Though your lady excelled, as much as your diamond, _I could not believe she excelled many_; that is, I too _could_ yet _believe that there are_ many _whom_ she did not excel.”
“And, for anyone else who is reading this, I believe if you load entities without a PK: EntityLoad (myEntity, primaryKey) ... and no entity is returned, I * believe* that”
“I'm not really sure debunking this stuff really accomplishes anything ... if someone wants to believe a candidate for president is a closet terrorist, that's * what they want to believe*, the rumors are just an excuse.”
“_nobody_ would believe him, and who _could believe_ that in _a day_, almost without struggle, _all would be over_, and the past, the present, the future carried away on an unaccountable storm!”
“Nice job Pete - you even managed to get John to mention his "Milton" which I believe is code for book collection, but I could be wrong.”
“In your descriptions of the personality of Moscow, you use the Russian word "naglost," which I believe translates as "an unseemly blend of arrogance and shamelessness.”
“In Japanese, a mechanical pencil is called a "sharpen," which the Japanese believe is short for "sharp pencil.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘believe’.
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Eesily missspellable words
absence, abundance, accessible, accidentally, acclaim, accommodate, accomplish, accordion, accumulate, achievement, acquaintance, across and 420 more...
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*e?e
Words whose last and third-to-last letters are both "e".
here, eke, were, complete, mete, replete, adhere, where, mere, sphere, austere, aesthete and 98 more...
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Words Heard Too Often In Songs
Words overused in modern pop music.
Also see ruzuzu's list: Words that should be heard in songs more often.love, heart, dance, dancefloor, down, take, want, night, fight, baby, like, ooooh and 135 more...
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[Open] Stative Verbs
Definition Many of these can also be dynamic.
Please just list bare infinitives to keep the list wieldy. Perhaps a tag (e.g., “stative”) would be sufficient for participles.)act, amaze, appear, appreciate, astonish, become, believe, belong, cost, feel, get, hate and 53 more...
bilby "Never believe anything until it's officially denied."
- Margaret Atwood Nov 7, 2008
anydelirium '"My thesis is this: I want you to believe."
'"To believe what?"
'"To believe in things you cannot."' -Dracula, by Bram Stoker Feb 21, 2008