belief
Part of speech: noun
Morphological type: simple
Etymology: Etymology tree
Proto-Indo-European *lewbʰ-der.
Proto-Germanic *laubō
Proto-West Germanic *laubu
Old English lēafa
Middle English bileve
English belief
From Middle English bileve, from Old English lēafa, from Proto-West Germanic *laubu from Proto-Germanic *laubō. Compare German Glaube (“faith, belief”).
The replacement of final /v/ with /f/ is due to the analogy of noun-verb pairs with /f/ in the noun but /v/ in the verb, creating a pair belief : believe on the model of e.g. grief : grieve or proof : prove.
Inflected forms:
form: beliefs
pos: noun
tags: plural
Senses:
gloss: Mental acceptance of a claim as true.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: It's my belief that the thief is somebody known to us.
The belief that there is no conflict between [livestock] farming and arable production also seems to be unfounded: by preventing the growth of trees and other deep vegetation in the hills and by compacting the soil, grazing animals cause a cycle of flash floods and drought, sporadically drowning good land downstream and reducing the supply of irrigation water.
gloss: Faith or trust in the reality of something; often based upon one's own reasoning, trust in a claim, desire of actuality, and/or evidence considered.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: My belief is that there is a bear in the woods. Bill said he saw one.
Based on this data, it is our belief that X does not occur.
gloss: Something believed.
pos: noun
tags: countable
examples: The ancient people have a belief in many deities.
gloss: The quality or state of believing.
pos: noun
tags: uncountable
examples: My belief that it will rain tomorrow is strong.
gloss: Religious faith.
pos: noun
tags: uncountable
examples: She often said it was her belief that carried her through the hard times.
gloss: One's religious or moral convictions.
pos: noun
tags: countable
in-plural
uncountable
examples: I can't do that. It's against my beliefs.
The Trump administration will allow federal workers to promote their religious beliefs to colleagues, display religious items at work and pray together or individually, according to a memorandum issued Monday by the Office of Personnel Management. […] Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 forbids employers from discriminating based on religion. They are required to make reasonable accommodations for their employees’ religious practices and beliefs unless it would be an “undue hardship” to do so.
Synonyms: assumption
premise
faith
opinion
tenet
conviction
Antonyms: disbelief
Related words: believe
Derived words: basic belief
beggar belief
belief-beggaring
beliefful
beliefless
belieflike
belief system
beyond belief
contrary to popular belief
core belief
defy belief
disbelief
forebelief
foundational belief
limiting belief
luxury belief
make belief
metabelief
misbelief
nonbelief
overbelief
self-belief
unbelief
wanbelief
Translations:
lang: Albanian
word: besplotë
lang: Estonian
word: usk
lang: Finnish
word: usko
lang: Hindi
word: विश्वास
roman: viśvās
lang: Italian
word: fiducia
lang: Korean
word: 바람
roman: baram
lang: Polish
word: wiara
lang: Serbo-Croatian
word: уверење
lang: Serbo-Croatian
word: увјерење
lang: Serbo-Croatian
word: uverenje
lang: Serbo-Croatian
word: uvjerenje