disbelief

Etymology

It is formed from English dis- + belief,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} a hybrid of a prefix of Latin origin and a native Germanic word.^[4][7] It follows the verb disbelieve, recorded from the 1640s,^[4][2][3] from which Johnson (1755) derived it.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The act of disbelieving; rejecting a statement as untrue: 1672, in Bishop J. Wilkins's Of the Principles of Natural Religion.^[2][3] Etymonline gives the 1670s.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The word took over the role of misbelief.^[5] Johnson (1755) defined it as "refusal of credit; denial of belief".^[8] In 1817 Coleridge's Biographia Literaria described the reader's poetic faith as "that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment", the source of the phrase suspension of disbelief.^[4][5] Nineteenth-century usage distinguished disbelief, an active rejection, from unbelief, which could be a mere lack of belief but in theology a wilful opposition to the truth.^[4]

Timeline

• 1645 – the verb disbelieve.^[2]
• 1672 – disbelief, rejection of a statement as untrue.^[2][3]
• 1755 – Johnson: "refusal of credit; denial of belief".^[8]
• 1817 – Coleridge's "willing suspension of disbelief".^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. Refusal or inability to accept that something is true or real: He read the headline in disbelief.^[9][3][2]
2. suspension of disbelief: the willing acceptance of something imaginary as real, for the sake of enjoying a story or play.^[4][5]

Related words

• misbelief
• unbelief
• disbelieve

Usage notes

Etymonline, quoting the Century Dictionary, notes that disbelief usually means an active mental opposition, while unbelief may be only a failure to believe for lack of evidence, though in theology it took on the sense of wilful opposition to the truth.^[4]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ a b c Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
9. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins