Belief \Be*lief"\, n. [OE. bileafe, bileve; cf. AS. gele['a]fa. 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.

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)