Added 30 September 2026
faith
/feɪθ/ noun
In Latin: fides Wiktionary
noun Definition from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). Pronunciation from Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org. More about faith at Wordnik → Where our words come from →
-
A trust or confidence in the intentions or abilities of a person, object, or ideal from prior empirical evidence.
The faithfulness of Old Faithful gives us faith in it.
-
A conviction about abstractions, ideas, or beliefs, without empirical evidence, experience, or observation.
I have faith that my prayers will be answered.
-
A religious or spiritual belief system.
The Christian faith.
adverb
- Alternative form of in faith (“really, truly”).
interjection
- Ellipsis of by my faith.
Origin
From Middle English faith (also fay), borrowed from Old French fei, feid, from Latin fidem. Doublet of foy. Displaced native Old English ġelēafa, which was also a word for belief. * Old French had [θ] as a final devoiced allophone of /ð/ from lenited Latin /d/; this eventually fell silent in the 12th century. The -th of the Middle English forms is most straightforwardly accounted for as a direct borrowing of a French [θ]. However, it has also been seen as arising from alteration of a French form with -d under influence of English abstract nouns in the suffix -th (e.g., truth, ruth, health, etc.), or as a recharacterization of a French form like fay, fey, fei with the same suffix.
From Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org (CC BY-SA)