Definitions

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

  • noun The act of persuading or the state of being persuaded.
  • noun The ability or power to persuade.
  • noun A strongly held opinion; a conviction.
  • noun A body of religious beliefs; a religion.
  • noun A party, faction, or group holding to a particular set of ideas or beliefs.
  • noun Informal Kind; sort.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The act of persuading, influencing, or winning over the mind or will to some conclusion, determination, or course of action, by argument or the presentation of suitable reasons, and not by the exercise of authority, force, or fear; a coaxing or inclining of the mind or will by argument, or by appeals to reason, interest, the feelings, etc.
  • noun The state of being persuaded or convinced; settled opinion or conviction.
  • noun An inducement; a reason or motive for a certain action.
  • noun Way of thinking; creed or belief; hence, a sect or party adhering to a creed or system of opinions: as, Christians of the same persuasion.
  • noun Kind; sort.
  • noun Synonyms Opinion, Belief, Persuasion, Conviction, and Faith agree in expressing the assent of the mind. Opinion has the least feeling or energy, is most inellectual. Belief may be purely intellectual, or largely moral by the consent of the feelings or the will. Persuasion is a word borrowed from the field of action; primarily, we persuade one to do something by motives addressed to his feelings or interests; when the word is applied to opinions, it seems to retain much of its original sense, suggesting that the persuasioh is founded largely on the feelings or wishes: we have a pesuasion of that which we are willing to believe. Conviction starts from the other side, primarily suggesting that one was rather reluctantly forced to belive by the weight of evidance; it is now more often used of settled, profound, amd earnest beliefs: as, his deepest convictions of right and duty. Faith rests upon belief, but implies confidence in a person on whose authority one depends at least partly, and the gathering of feeling about the opinion held; it is a confident belief: as, to have implict faith in a friend or a promise. See inference, and quotation from Wordsworth under definition 2.

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

  • noun The act of persuading; the act of influencing the mind by arguments or reasons offered, or by anything that moves the mind or passions, or inclines the will to a determination.
  • noun The state of being persuaded or convinced; settled opinion or conviction, which has been induced.
  • noun A creed or belief; a sect or party adhering to a certain creed or system of opinions
  • noun The power or quality of persuading; persuasiveness.
  • noun rare That which persuades; a persuasive.

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

  • noun a personal belief or judgment that is not founded on proof or certainty
  • noun the act of persuading (or attempting to persuade); communication intended to induce belief or action

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old French, from Latin persuāsiō, persuāsiōn-, from persuāsus, past participle of persuādēre, to persuade; see persuade.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle French persuasion and its source, Latin persuasio, from persuadere, from suadere ("to advise, recommend").

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Examples

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  • "immigrants of any persuasion"

    Source: A Moment of Bad Faith

    January 22, 2018