DOUBT • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Doubt

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/daʊt/ Listen

noun

Doubt n.

A fluctuation of mind arising from defect of knowledge or evidence; uncertainty of judgment or mind; unsettled state of opinion concerning the reality of an event, or the truth of an assertion, etc.; hesitation. "Doubt is the beginning and the end of our efforts to know." "Doubt, in order to be operative in requiring an acquittal, is not the want of perfect certainty (which can never exist in any question of fact) but a defect of proof preventing a reasonable assurance of quilt."

Uncertainty of condition. "Thy life shall hang in doubt before thee."

Suspicion; fear; apprehension; dread. (Obs.) "I stand in doubt of you." "Nor slack her threatful hand for danger's doubt."

Difficulty expressed or urged for solution; point unsettled; objection. "To every doubt your answer is the same."

No doubt, undoubtedly; without doubt.

Out of doubt, beyond doubt. (Obs.)

Synonyms: Uncertainty; hesitation; suspense; indecision; irresolution; distrust; suspicion; scruple; perplexity; ambiguity; skepticism.

verb

Doubt v. t.

To question or hold questionable; to withhold assent to; to hesitate to believe, or to be inclined not to believe; to withhold confidence from; to distrust; as, I have heard the story, but I doubt the truth of it. "To admire superior sense, and doubt their own!" "I doubt not that however changed, you keep So much of what is graceful."

To doubt not but. "I do not doubt but I have been to blame." "We doubt not now But every rub is smoothed on our way." Note: That is, we have no doubt to prevent us from believing, etc. (or notwithstanding all that may be said to the contrary) but having a preventive sense, after verbs of "doubting" and "denying" that convey a notion of hindrance.

To suspect; to fear; to be apprehensive of. (Obs.) "Edmond (was a) good man and doubted God." "I doubt some foul play." "That I of doubted danger had no fear."

To fill with fear; to affright. (Obs.) "The virtues of the valiant Caratach More doubt me than all Britain."

Doubt v. i. (past & past part. doubted; pres. part. doubting)

To waver in opinion or judgment; to be in uncertainty as to belief respecting anything; to hesitate in belief; to be undecided as to the truth of the negative or the affirmative proposition; to b e undetermined. "Even in matters divine, concerning some things, we may lawfully doubt, and suspend our judgment." "To try your love and make you doubt of mine."

To suspect; to fear; to be apprehensive. (Obs.)

Synonyms: To waver; vacillate; fluctuate; hesitate; demur; scruple; question.

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Etymology of 'Doubt'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Doubt" Quotes from Famous Books

... and so soon after there was a' that talk about thy feyther. Many a man would ha' drawn back, choose howiver far they'd gone. I'm noane so sure about Charley Kinraid. Eh, Sylvia! only think on his being alive after all. I doubt if our Bessy would ha' wed Frank Dawson if she'd known as he wasn't drowned. But it's as well she did, for Dawson's a man o' property, and has getten twelve cows in his cow-house, beside three right down good horses; and Kinraid were allays a fellow wi' two strings to his ...

— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. III • Elizabeth Gaskell

... they were, there is no doubt that to a great extent we owed our salvation to those terrible ants. Had it not been for them and the incessant torture they inflicted on us when we fell down upon the ground, we should have perhaps lain there and never ...

— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... out in a burst of sobs and tears. "Master Archie—bless his little heart!—has got out of bed and ran away into the woods. The master was gone after him, but he'd niver find him at all at all"—(this was Marianne's addition). "The tramps had him fast by this time, no doubt. They'd niver ...

— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge

... prepossession. He was born in a Christian country, of course he is a Christian; his father was a member of the church of England, so is he. When such is the hereditary religion handed down from generation to generation, it cannot surprise us to observe young men of sense and spirit beginning to doubt altogether of the truth of the system in which they have been brought up, and ready to abandon a station which they are unable to defend. Knowing Christianity chiefly in the difficulties which it contains, and in the impossibilities which are falsely imputed to it, they fall perhaps into ...

— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce

... question; it may be thought at least an ill sign, if not an ill constitution, since some of the fathers went so far as to esteem the love of music a sign of predestination, as a thing divine, and reserved for the felicities of heaven itself. While this world lasts, I doubt not but the pleasure and requests of these two entertainments will do so too: and happy those that content themselves with these, or any other so easy and so innocent; and do not trouble the world, or other men, because they cannot be quiet ...

— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock

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