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.