[syn: unbelief, disbelief]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Disbelief \Dis*be*lief"\, n.
The act of disbelieving;; a state of the mind in which one is
fully persuaded that an opinion, assertion, or doctrine is
not true; refusal of assent, credit, or credence; denial of
belief.
[1913 Webster]
Our belief or disbelief of a thing does not alter the
nature of the thing. --Tillotson.
[1913 Webster]
No sadder proof can be given by a man of his own
littleness that disbelief in great men. --Carlyle.
Syn: Distrust; unbelief; incredulity; doubt; skepticism. --
Disbelief, Unbelief. Unbelief is a mere failure to
admit; disbelief is a positive rejection. One may be an
unbeliever in Christianity from ignorance or want of
inquiry; a unbeliever has the proofs before him, and
incurs the guilt of setting them aside. Unbelief is
usually open to conviction; disbelief is already
convinced as to the falsity of that which it rejects.
Men often tell a story in such a manner that we regard
everything they say with unbelief. Familiarity with the
worst parts of human nature often leads us into a
disbelief in many good qualities which really exist
among men.
[1913 Webster]
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):
disbelief
n 1: doubt about the truth of something [syn: incredulity,
disbelief, skepticism, mental rejection]
2: a rejection of belief [syn: unbelief, disbelief] [ant:
belief]
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:
32 Moby Thesaurus words for "disbelief":
agnosticism, atheism, confutability, contestability,
controvertibility, deism, deniability, denial, discredit,
disputability, doubt, doubtfulness, dubiety, dubiousness,
dubitancy, faithlessness, heresy, inability to believe,
incredulity, infidelity, minimifidianism, misbelief, nonbelief,
nullifidianism, questionableness, refutability, rejection,
repudiation, secularism, spurning, unbelief, unbelievingness