\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.