Belief

How to spell belief

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce belief

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does belief mean?

1. nounAn acceptance that something is true, real, or worthy of trust.

Belief in a sentence

• Her firm belief in the plan kept the whole team motivated.

• There is a widespread belief that the policy will save money.

Where does belief come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Belief comes from Old English, where the earlier form geleafa meant a trust or faith in something. It is built from a Germanic root tied to the word 'lief', which once meant dear, beloved, or pleasing, so to believe something was originally to hold it dear and to trust it. The same family gave German Glaube, faith, and the verb glauben, to believe. Over the Middle English period the prefix shifted from ge- to be-, giving us the familiar 'belief' and 'believe'. The spelling trap is the vowel order: it follows the everyday rule 'i before e except after c', so it is ie, not ei, even though the matching verb 'believe' tempts writers toward similar slips.

How the word is built

• be- (intensive prefix)
• lief (from Old English leofa: dear, pleasing, trusted)