Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The state or quality of being incredulous; disbelief.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The quality of being incredulous or indisposed to believe; a withholding or refusal of belief; skepticism; unbelief.
  • noun Synonyms Disbelief, distrust, doubt.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The state or quality of being incredulous; a withholding or refusal of belief; skepticism; unbelief; disbelief.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Unwillingness or inability to believe; doubt about the truth or verisimilitude of something; disbelief.
  • noun rare Religious disbelief, lack of faith.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun doubt about the truth of something

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Attested since 1430. From Old French incredulité, from Latin incredulitas, from incredulus ("unbelieving") + -itas ("-ity")

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Examples

  • It is evident these are the actual causes of those changes which the priests well know how to make use of against what they call incredulity; from which they draw proofs of the reality of their sublimated opinions.

    The System of Nature, Volume 2 Paul Henri Thiry Holbach 1756

  • One I've been asked more times than I can count, sometimes with genuine curiosity, sometimes with a sneering edge of "I can do that, you're nothing special," sometimes with an air of absolute incredulity from a reader who gets it.

    How Do You Write A Novel? 2007

  • The man crouched on the floor, watching her, with an expression of incredulity, almost stupefaction.

    Her Fearful Symmetry AUDREY NIFFENEGGER 2009

  • One I've been asked more times than I can count, sometimes with genuine curiosity, sometimes with a sneering edge of "I can do that, you're nothing special," sometimes with an air of absolute incredulity from a reader who gets it.

    March 2007 2007

  • Your claim, based on no empirical data but just an analogy and incredulity, is that such a process is not conceivable.

    Bits and Pieces of an RNA World 2007

  • Anything positive piece of testable evidence that ID explains better than evolution (as opposed to gaps or other claims rooted in incredulity)?

    But it's not Science! 2006

  • Anything positive piece of testable evidence that ID explains better than evolution (as opposed to gaps or other claims rooted in incredulity)?

    But it's not Science! 2006

  • An argument from incredulity is a logical fallacy based on an absence of evidence.

    Confirmation Bias and ID 2006

  • Quite commonly, the argument from personal incredulity is used in combination with some evidence in an attempt to sway opinion towards a preferred conclusion.

    Think Progress » ThinkFast: April 21, 2006 2006

  • An argument from personal incredulity is the same as an argument from ignorance if, and only if, the person making the argument has solely their particular personal belief in the impossibility of the one scenario as “evidence” that the alternative scenario is true (i.e., the person lacks relevant evidence specifically for the alternative scenario).

    Think Progress » ThinkFast: April 21, 2006 2006

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