Definition of "believe" []

• To accept as true or real: Do you believe the news stories? (verb-transitive)
• To credit with veracity: I believe you. (verb-transitive)
• To expect or suppose; think: I believe they will arrive shortly. (verb-transitive)
• To have firm faith, especially religious faith. (verb-intransitive)
• To have faith, confidence, or trust: I believe in your ability to solve the problem. (verb-intransitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "_ Yes, yes, _said the other_, I believe she is: _But I believe_, said I, _You but taak'n all this while, for no Body mun do such things."
• "Doubt strikes at the root of Justice and of Love -- not the doubt that is the half-brother to Disbelief, but the doubt which wonders always and always if we believe most easily what we _want to believe_, and if our firmest conviction against such Belief is not, more than anything else, yet one more manifestation of what we desire so earnestly _to doubt_."
• "And while we believe that such efforts are praiseworthy for the reason that many persons must be first convinced in that way, still we feel that one must really _feel_ the truth of the doctrine from something within his own consciousness, before he will really _believe_ it to be truth."