Be*lief" (&?;), n. [OE.
bileafe, bileve; cf. AS.
geleáfa. 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.
Hear it pronounced