Definify.com

Webster 1913 Edition


Disbelief

Dis-be-lief′

,
Noun.
The act of disbelieving;; a state of the mind in which one is fully persuaded that an opinion, assertion, or doctrine is not true; refusal of assent, credit, or credence; denial of belief.
Our belief or
disbelief
of a thing does not alter the nature of the thing.
Tillotson.
Syn. – Distrust; unbelief; incredulity; doubt; skepticism. –
Disbelief
,
Unbelief
. Unbelief is a mere failure to admit; disbelief is a positive rejection. One may be an unbeliever in Christianity from ignorance or want of inquiry; a unbeliever has the proofs before him, and incurs the guilt of setting them aside. Unbelief is usually open to conviction; disbelief is already convinced as to the falsity of that which it rejects. Men often tell a story in such a manner that we regard everything they say with unbelief. Familiarity with the worst parts of human nature often leads us into a disbelief in many good qualities which really exist among men.

Webster 1828 Edition


Disbelief

DISBELIEF

,
Noun.
[dis and belief.] Refusal of credit or faith; denial of belief.
Our belief or disbelief of a thing does not alter the nature of the thing.

Definition 2024


disbelief

disbelief

English

Noun

disbelief (countable and uncountable, plural disbeliefs)

  1. Unpreparedness, unwillingness, or inability to believe that something is the case.
    She cried out in disbelief on hearing that terrorists had crashed an airplane into the World Trade Center in New York City.
  2. Astonishment.
    I stared in disbelief at the Grand Canyon.
  3. The loss or abandonment of a belief; cessation of belief.
    • 1885, H. J. Hardwicke, “The God Idea”, in The Agnostic: A Monthly Journal of Liberal Thought, volume 1, page 239:
      There is an agony of suffering in that lingering doubt which haunts the human soul in the beginnings of disbelief.
    • 1927, Gilbert W. Gabriel, “Male, Female and American Drama”, in Vanity Fair, volume 27, number 4, page 73:
      No adolescent can achieve disbelief in the stork without an eruption of young oaths and cynicisms.
    • Laikwan Pang (2002) Building a New China in Cinema: The Chinese Left-wing Cinema Movement, 1932-1937, ISBN 074250946X, page 99: “His later left-wing films prevented any pure and strong emotional attachment between the two sexes from gaining narrative momentum, which might reflect his gradual disbelief in romantic love.”
    • Gloria Neufeld Redekop (2012) Bad Girls and Boys Go to **** (or not): Engaging Fundamentalist Evangelicalism, ISBN 1620320614, page 246: “Just like the disbelief in Santa Claus happens gradually, I wondered if it was similar for people leaving their faith.”

Synonyms

Related terms

Translations

References

  • disbelief” in An American Dictionary of the English Language, by Noah Webster, 1828.
  • disbelief in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
  • disbelief” in Dictionary.com Unabridged, v1.0.1, Lexico Publishing Group, 2006.