Belief

Be·lief

Belief

n.
  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. A persuasion of the truths of religion; faith. (Theol.)
    No man can attain [to] belief by the bare contemplation of heaven and earth.
  3. The thing believed; the object of belief.
    Superstitious prophecies are not only the belief of fools, but the talk sometimes of wise men.
  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.

Phrases & Compounds

Ultimate belief
a first principle incapable of proof; an intuitive truth; an intuition.