Forms: α. 2 unbelefe, 4 vnbylefe; 3 unbileue, -leaue, 4 vnbi-, vnbyleue, 4, 6 unbeleue (4 -leeue, 6 -leve). β. 6 vnbelefe, 6–7 -leefe, -liefe, 6– unbelief (6–7 -liefe). [UN-1 12.] Absence or lack of belief; disbelief, incredulity.
a. In matters of religion.
α. c. 1160. Hatton Gosp., Mark xvi. 14. Heom atewede se hælend & here unbelefen & heora heorten ʓe-tremede.
c. 1200. Trin. Coll. Hom., 81. He … blamede here un-bileue & here unwreste liflode.
a. 1225. Leg. Kath., 259. Wið neauer an ne keccheð he creftiluker cang men, ne leadeð to unbileaue.
1382. Wyclif, Matt. xiii. 58. He dide nat there manye vertues, for the vnbyleue of hem.
a. 1400. New Test. (Paues), Heb. iii. 12. Loke ȝe, wheþer þer be in any of ȝou an efel herte of vnbylefe.
1526. Tindale, Rom. xi. 20. Be cause of vnbeleve they are broken of.
1567. Gude & Godlie B. (S.T.S.), 13. Sail vs … from dispair, From unbeleue, and Lollardis lair.
β. 1531. Tindale, Exp. 1 John ii. (1538), 39. The doctrine of them … that say, vnbelefe to be the mother of al vyce.
1597. Hooker, Eccl. Pol., V. xxii. § 4. Their vnbeleefe in that case we may not impute vnto any weakness … in the meanes.
1634. Milton, Comus, 519. Such there be, but unbelief is blind.
1680. Flavel, Meth. Grace, xxxii. Positive Unbelief, is the Sin of Men and Women under the Gospel.
1705. Atterbury, Serm. (1726), II. 51. For the Mind doth, by every degree of affected Unbelief, contract more and more of a general Indisposition towards Believing.
1809–10. Coleridge, Friend (1865), 57. As much as I love my fellow-men, so much and no more will I be intolerant of their heresies and unbelief.
1858. J. Martineau, Stud. Chr., 27. The second of these books would be condemned for heresy, and the first for unbelief.
1897. Liddon, etc., Life Pusey, IV. iii. 73. Those forms of German unbelief with which … he had become painfully familiar at Göttingen.
b. In general use.
1649. J. Taylor (Water P.), Western Voy., 15. It is a hazard of the losse of a traveller’s liberty by either their unbeliefe or misprision.
a. 1800. Cowper, Odyssey (ed. 2), XIV. 177. Since, hopeless of thy lord’s return, Thou art thus resolute in unbelief.
1855. Poultry Chron., II. 566/1. The tables were turned on me by the man, who had I suppose observed my previous gesture of unbelief.
1900. Longm. Mag., March, 465. I had received the news with contemptuous unbelief.
c. Personified.
1744. Akenside, Pleas. Imag., III. 122. Where watchful Unbelief Darts through the thin pretence her squinting eye.
1781. Cowper, Truth, 445. Thus often unbelief, grown sick of life, Flies to the templing pool, or felon knife.
