Crossword Dictionary

What's The Definition Of Belief?

\Be*lief"\, n. [OE. bileafe, bileve; cf. AS. gele['a]fa. See {Believe}.] 1. Assent to a proposition or affirmation, or the acceptance of a fact, opinion, or assertion as real or true, without immediate personal knowledge; reliance upon word or testimony; partial or full assurance without positive knowledge or absolute certainty; persuasion; conviction; confidence; as, belief of a witness; the belief of our senses. Belief admits of all degrees, from the slightest suspicion to the fullest assurance. --Reid. 2. (Theol.) A persuasion of the truths of religion; faith. No man can attain [to] belief by the bare contemplation of heaven and earth. --Hooker. 3. The thing believed; the object of belief. Superstitious prophecies are not only the belief of fools, but the talk sometimes of wise men. --Bacon. 4. A tenet, or the body of tenets, held by the advocates of any class of views; doctrine; creed. In the heat of persecution to which Christian belief was subject upon its first promulgation. --Hooker. {Ultimate belief}, a first principle incapable of proof; an intuitive truth; an intuition. --Sir W. Hamilton. Syn: Credence; trust; reliance; assurance; opinion.