belief

I

(New American Roget's College Thesaurus)

Faith

Nouns

1. (assurance of truth) belief, credence, credit, assurance, [good] faith, trust, troth, confidence, presumption; dependence on, reliance on. Informal, store. Slang, stock, gospel. See supposition, piety, credulity.

2. opinion, persuasion, conviction, certainty; [matter of] opinion, mind, [point of] view, viewpoint, outlook; impression, notion, idea; vox populi, conventional wisdom; op ed; surmise, conclusion (See judgment).

3. (organized belief) tenet, dogma, principle, article of faith; school, doctrine, articles, canon[s], catechism; declaration or profession of faith, constitution, manifesto, creed, tenets, orthodoxy; cult, ism, weltanschauung.

See religion, heterodoxy.

4. (believability) credibility, believability, plausibility, probability.

5. (one who believes) [true] believer; devotee, zealot, disciple; fanatic.

Verbs

1. (trust in) believe, credit, accredit, give credence to, give the benefit of the doubt, take at face value; take for; consider, esteem (See supposition); count, rely, figure, or depend on, pin one's faith on, swear by; take on trust or credit; take for granted or gospel. Informal, set store by, bet on, bank on, bet one's bottom dollar on, have the courage of one's convictions; buy, swallow [whole] (See credulity); take stock in, buy into.

2. (trust in) confide in, believe in, put one's trust in; take one's word for, take at one's word; give the benefit of the doubt; pin one's hopes on (See hope).

3. (hold a belief) think, hold, opine, be of the opinion, be persuaded, conceive, fancy, apprehend; have, hold, entertain, hazard, or cherish a belief or an opinion; feel in one's bones. Informal, have a hunch, expect, be afraid.

4. (inspire belief) satisfy, persuade, assure, convince, convert, bring [a]round, indoctrinate, teach, bring home to; be convincing, carry conviction; convince oneself, make up one's mind. Slang, sell.

Adjectives

1. believing, trusting, unsuspecting; devout; naive; satisfied, confident, unhesitating, convinced, persuaded, secure.

2. believable, credible, trustworthy, worthy, to be depended on, unimpeachable; satisfactory; probable, odds-on; persuasive, impressive, convincing.

3. indubitable, undeniable, indisputable, incontrovertible (See certainty).

4. convincing, persuasive, inspiring belief or trust; authoritative.

5. doctrinal, canonical, dogmatic, of faith.

Adverbs

1. no doubt, on faith, on the strength of, with confidence.

2. in one's opinion or judgment, to one's way of thinking, in one's estimation.

Phrases — faith will move mountains; seeing is believing; a believer is a songless bird in a cage.

Quotations — The constant assertion of belief is an indication of fear ( Jiddu Krishnamurti), Belief must mean something more than desire or hope (Clarence Darrow), Hundreds may believe, but each has to believe by himself (W. H. Auden), What is it that men cannot be made to believe! (Thomas Jefferson), Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe (Bible), Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast (Lewis Carroll), The great act of faith is when a man decides he is not God (Oliver Wendell Holmes), Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable (H. L. Mencken), I submit to you that if a man hasn't discovered something he will die for, he isn't fit to live (Martin Luther King).

Antonyms, See doubt, certainty.

II

(Roget's IV) n.

1. [Mental conviction]

Syn. credit, credence, acceptance, trust, avowal, conviction, confidence, profession, opinion, notion, persuasion, position, understanding, faith, assent, mindset, surmise, suspicion, thesis, knowledge, feeling, sentiment, conclusion, presumption, hypothesis, thinking, hope, intuition, assurance, expectation, axiom, deduction, judgment, certainty, mind, impression, assumption, conjecture, postulation, theorem, divination, fancy, presupposition, supposition, notion, apprehension, theory, view, viewpoint, guess, conception, reliance, Dependence, idea, inference.

2. [That which is believed]

Syn. creed, credo, tenet, dogma; see faith 2 , tenet .

Syn.- belief , the term of broadest application in this comParison, implies mental acceptance of something as true, even though absolute certainty may be absent; faith implies complete, unquestioning acceptance of something, esp. something not supported by reason, even in the absence of proof; trust implies assurance, often apparently intuitive, in the reliability of someone or something; confidence also suggests such assurance, esp. when based on reason or evidence; credence suggests mere mental acceptance of something that may have no solid basis in fact See also Synonym Study at opinion .

III

(Roget's 3 Superthesaurus) n.

conviction, certainty, faith, trust, assumption, presumption, acceptance, confidence, credence, hope, feeling, guess, understanding, notion, judgment, position, hypothesis, credo, dogma. ''The most complete of all distinctions between man and the lower animals.''—Charles Darwin.

IV

(Roget's Thesaurus II) noun 1. Absolute certainty in the trustworthiness of another: confidence, dependence, faith, reliance, trust. See BELIEF. 2. Mental acceptance of the truth or actuality of something: credence, credit, faith. See OPINION. 3. Something accepted as true: conviction, feeling, idea, mind, notion, opinion, persuasion, position, sentiment, view. See OPINION.