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believe

verb

Simple meaning

Accept as true.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

bihleev

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US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

bɪˈliv

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

verb

  1. Accept as true; take to be true

  2. transitive

    To accept as true, particularly without absolute certainty (i.e., as opposed to knowing).

  3. transitive

    To accept that someone is telling the truth.

  4. To have confidence in the ability or power of.

  5. transitive

    To opine, think, reckon.

  6. To ascribe existence to.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
A1 · Beginner
Frequency
Very Common
Typical Use
Everyday English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: Accept as true; take to be true

Used this way, believe is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
No strong connotation
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

More ways to use believe

  • “I believe that he will come back from the war.”verb
  • “I believed his report.”verb

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

hardly believefirmly believe

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Inflected forms

Grammatical variations of the same word.

  • believingnounInflected form

    The cognitive process that leads to convictions.

  • believernounInflected form

    A supporter who accepts something as true.

Word family

Words built from the same root.

  • believableadjectiveDerived adjective

    Capable of being believed.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • believe inverbCompound term

    Have a firm conviction as to the goodness of something.

  • make-believenounCompound term

    Imaginative intellectual play.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: accept as true

thinktrustconsider

Antonyms

Sense: accept as true

disbelieve

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.