Etymology

belief

be·lief
B3E1L1I1E1F4

Today it means: Mental acceptance of a claim as true. Full definition →

Middle English bileve ← Old English lēafa ← Proto-West Germanic *laubu
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The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European*lewbʰ-
  2. Proto-Germanic*laubō
  3. Proto-West Germanic*laubu
  4. Old Englishlēafa
  5. Middle Englishbileve
  6. English todaybelief

From Middle English bileve, from Old English lēafa, from Proto-West Germanic *laubu from Proto-Germanic *laubō. Compare German Glaube (“faith, belief”). The replacement of final /v/ with /f/ is due to the analogy of noun-verb pairs with /f/ in the noun but /v/ in the verb, creating a pair belief : believe on the model of e.g. grief : grieve or proof : prove.

Words from the same roots

Proto-Germanic*laubō all →

leave

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.