believe : Idioms & Phrases

• verb have a firm conviction as to the goodness of something
  
  • John believes in oat bran

WordNet

• verb represent fictitiously, as in a play, or pretend to be or act like
  make; pretend.
  
  • She makes like an actress

WordNet

• noun imaginative intellectual play
  pretence; pretense.
  
• noun the enactment of a pretense
  pretend.
  
  • it was just pretend
• adjective satellite imagined as in a play
  pretend.
  
  • the make-believe world of theater
  • play money
  • dangling their legs in the water to catch pretend fish

WordNet

Make"-be*lieve` noun

Definitions

1. A feigning to believe, as in the play of children; a mere pretense; a fiction; an invention. "Childlike make-believe." Tylor.

   To forswear self-delusion and make-believe. M. Arnold.

Make"-be*lieve` adjective

Definitions

1. Feigned; insincere. "Make-believe reverence." imaginary G. Eliot.

Webster 1913

• . (a) To believe that the subject of the thought (if a person or thing) exists, or (if an event) that it has occurred, or will occur; as, to believe in the resurrection of the dead. "She does not believe in Jupiter." J. H. Newman. (b) To believe that the character, abilities, and purposes of a person are worthy of entire confidence; especially that his promises are wholly trustworthy. "Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me." John xiv. 1. (c) To believe that the qualities or effects of an action or state are beneficial: as, to believe in sea bathing, or in abstinence from alcoholic beverages.

Webster 1913

• to accept implicitly as an object of religious trust or obedience; to have faith in.

Webster 1913

• to pretend; to feign; to simulate.

Webster 1913