Believer

How to spell believer

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce believer

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does believer mean?

1. nounA person who has faith or confidence in something, someone, or a particular idea.

Believer in a sentence

• As a firm believer in saving early, she opened a pension in her twenties.

• The coach was a true believer in the talent of his younger players.

Where does believer come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word grows from the verb 'believe', which traces back to the Old English gelēfan, later belēfan, meaning 'to hold dear, to trust, to have faith in'. That verb came from the Proto-Germanic root galaubjan, built on the same ancient base that gave us 'love' and the old adjective 'lief' (meaning dear or beloved), so to believe something was originally to find it dear and trustworthy. The intensifying be- prefix simply strengthened the verb, much as it does in 'become' and 'bemoan'. The agent suffix -er was attached to mean 'a person who believes', a formation that became common in English from the medieval period onward. The spelling trap lives in the middle: the 'ie' follows the familiar 'i before e' pattern, but writers often pause over whether it is 'ie' or 'ei', since the related 'receive' takes the opposite order after the letter c.

How the word is built

• be- (intensive prefix)
• lieve (root, from Old English gelēfan 'to hold dear, trust')
• -er (agent suffix: one who does)