disbelief

plural disbeliefs

1. uncountableusuallyAn unpreparedness, unwillingness, or an inability to believe that something is the case.

   She cried out in disbelief on hearing that terrorists had crashed an airplane into the World Trade Center in New York City.

   1 more example

   'Smuggling was a way of life here, with no stigma attached,' David explained. His own granny used to smuggle out rabbit meat, tied to her body, and bring back such coveted Italian goods as chocolate, coffee and brooms. 'Brooms?' I asked him in disbelief. 'Yes, ordinary sorghum brooms, which were in short supply in Communist Yugoslavia, like many other basic household goods,' he said with a smile.

   2026 June 24, Vitali Vitaliev, “Life on the borderline”, in RAIL, number 1064, page 68

2. uncountableusuallyAstonishment.

   I stared in disbelief at the Grand Canyon.

   1 more example

   On the streets leading down to the main road to Tiananmen Square, furious people stared in disbelief at the glow in the sky, listening to the sound of shots.

   1989 June 4, Kate Adie, 0:11 from the start, in Archive: Chinese troops fire on protesters in Tiananmen Square - BBC News, Peking: BBC News, published 2014

3. uncountableusuallyThe loss or abandonment of a belief; the cessation of belief.

   No adolescent can achieve disbelief in the stork without an eruption of young oaths and cynicisms.

   1927, Gilbert W. Gabriel, “Male, Female and American Drama”, in Vanity Fair, volume 27, number 4, page 73

   3 more examples

   There is an agony of suffering in that lingering doubt which haunts the human soul in the beginnings of disbelief.

   1885, H. J. Hardwicke, “The God Idea”, in The Agnostic: A Monthly Journal of Liberal Thought, volume 1, page 239

   His later left-wing films prevented any pure and strong emotional attachment between the two sexes from gaining narrative momentum, which might reflect his gradual disbelief in romantic love.

   2002, Laikwan Pang, Building a New China in Cinema: The Chinese Left-wing Cinema Movement, 1932-1937, →ISBN, page 99

   Just like the disbelief in Santa Claus happens gradually, I wondered if it was similar for people leaving their faith.

   2012, Gloria Neufeld Redekop, Bad Girls and Boys Go to Hell (or not): Engaging Fundamentalist Evangelicalism, →ISBN, page 246