faith

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   loyalty or allegiance to a cause or a person

   keep the faith

2. 2
   noun

   complete confidence in a thing

   Our team cherished the faith of our boss, it allowed us to really push the envelope on projects.

3. 3
   noun

   a strong belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny

   They lost their faith but not their morality.

4. 4
   noun

   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.

5. 5
   noun

   A conviction about abstractions, ideas, or beliefs, without empirical evidence, experience, or observation.

   I have faith that my prayers will be answered.

6. 6
   noun

   A religious or spiritual belief system.

   The Christian faith.

7. 7
   noun

   An obligation of loyalty or fidelity and the observance of such an obligation.

   He acted in good faith to restore broken diplomatic ties after defeating the incumbent.

8. 8
   noun

   Credibility or truth.

   1784-1810, William Mitford, History of Greece the faith of the foregoing […] narrative

Etymology

From Middle English faith (also fay), borrowed from Old French fei, feid, from Latin fidem. 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 rech…