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disbelief

noun

Simple meaning

An unpreparedness, unwillingness, or an inability to believe that something is the case.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

dihsbihleef

Say the bold part a little louder.

US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

dɪsbɪˈlif

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.

noun

  1. An unpreparedness, unwillingness, or an inability to believe that something is the case.

  2. The loss or abandonment of a belief; the cessation of belief.

  3. A rejection of belief

  4. Astonishment.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
C1 · Advanced (estimated)
Frequency
Uncommon
Formality
Technical

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: An unpreparedness, unwillingness, or an inability to believe that something is the case.

Used this way, disbelief is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It keeps things gentle rather than emphatic.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
Reluctant or hesitant
Usage feel
Understated and gentle

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

More ways to use disbelief

  • “She cried out in disbelief on hearing that terrorists had crashed an airplane into the World Trade Center in New York City.”noun
  • “I stared in disbelief at the Grand Canyon.”noun

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

utter disbelieftotal disbeliefsuspend disbeliefexpressed disbelief

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More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: unpreparedness or unwillingness

unbelief

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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.