Believe

We use this word a lot these days.

Merriam Webster's Online Dictionary defines believe like this:

to have a firm religious faith; to accept as true, genuine, or real.

My Oxford English Dictionary takes us back to ancient times and the beginnings of this word.

BELIEVE is composed of two parts: be (=about) + lieve (=to hold dear, think highly of). This root lieve comes from Old German, probably Anglian (the Anglo in Anglo-Saxon). The original form was probably gilauben/geliefen, which also developed into the modern German glauben (to believe). The even earlier Teutonic root (which most Northern European languages come from)was lubh... the word for love! (see "liebe" in German, "lief" in Dutch, and Любовь in Russian (lyoobov).

So basically our word believe comes from this sense of loving something which is valuable to you. The be- prefix didn't get added on until the late Middle Ages... so for a long time people would just say " I LEVE" to mean "I believe". From this we still have the word "lief" in stories, such as in the following example:

"If I have a choice, I'd as lief be killed by an atom bomb as by a hand grenade or a flame thrower." Katherine Anne Porter; The Future is Now; The Days Before; New York, Harcourt, Brace; 1952.

The only reason we spell our word "B E L I E V E" is because of a mispelling in the 17th century which became popular. Before then it was spelled beleeve, as Shakespeare wrote in Measure for Measure, III, ii, 27: "I beleeue I know the cause."

I think it's cool that the word believe really meant to hold something very dear, with all your heart. Nowadays people seem to believe pretty loosely. As an example, we need a stronger sense of "be-lief-ing" in our Creator.

Tune in tomorrow for a new twist on another old word!

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