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disbelieve

verb
/dɪsbɪˈliːv/UK

Etymology

Coined circa 1640, from dis- + believe. Compare misbelieve.

  1. inherited from *bilaubijan✻ — “to believe”
  2. inherited from belīefan — “to believe”
  3. inherited from beleven
  4. prefixed as disbelieve — “dis + believe”

Definitions

  1. To not believe

    To not believe; to exercise disbelief.

    • If you disbelieve such people, then keep disbelieving them for as long as you live or want.
    • And the Lisbonites did not more disbelieve in, and dream less of their coming ruin, than Cecil did his, […]

  2. To actively deny (a statement, opinion or perception).

    • He chose to disbelieve the bad news as inconceivable.

  3. To cease to believe.

    • And so far as this opinion prevails, we have reason to fear that the important doctrine, of the real Divinity and even of the humanity of Christ, will be gradually disbelieved.
    • Elfrida walked slowly upstairs, reviewing what had happened and not happened in the last three, not to say six weeks, and gradually disbelieving the good case that she had made out.
    • He never "revolted" against Christianity; only, reluctantly and gradually, disbelieved it.

The neighborhood

Derived

disbelievable, disbeliever

Vish — recursive loop

A definitional loop anchored at disbelieve. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.

01disbelieve02believe03absolute04perfectly05totally06definitely07definite08doubt

A definitional loop anchored at disbelieve. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.

8 hops · closes at disbelieve

curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA