"leap of faith" meaning in English

See leap of faith in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: leaps of faith [plural]
Etymology: Often attributed to Søren Kierkegaard, although he never used the exact wording. Head templates: {{en-noun|leaps of faith}} leap of faith (plural leaps of faith)
  1. (figuratively) The act of believing in something despite lack of proof of its truth or existence, or the attempt of something without being sure of its possible outcome. Wikipedia link: Søren Kierkegaard Tags: figuratively Related terms: act of faith Translations (act of believing in something despite proof): 選擇相信 (Chinese Mandarin), 选择相信 (xuǎnzé xiāngxìn) (Chinese Mandarin), 信仰之躍 (Chinese Mandarin), 信仰之跃 (xìnyǎng zhī yuè) [literary] (Chinese Mandarin), uskon hyppy (Finnish), acte de foi [masculine] (French), τυφλή πίστη (tyflí písti) [feminine] (Greek), atto di fede [masculine] (Italian), skok wiary (Polish), salto da fé (Portuguese), salto de fe [masculine] (Spanish)

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for leap of faith meaning in English (3.6kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "Often attributed to Søren Kierkegaard, although he never used the exact wording.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "leaps of faith",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "leaps of faith"
      },
      "expansion": "leap of faith (plural leaps of faith)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Mandarin terms with non-redundant manual transliterations",
          "parents": [
            "Terms with non-redundant manual transliterations",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "He took a leap of faith by publishing his first book independently.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2010, Christopher Nolan, Inception (motion picture), spoken by Saito (Ken Watanabe)",
          "text": "Don't you want to take a leap of faith? Or become an old man, filled with regret, waiting to die alone?",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2021 July 28, Nigel Harris, “Comment: Chasing shadows will fail”, in RAIL, number 936, page 3",
          "text": "Considering that the GBR proposal is supported by DfT (which would lose considerable power) with the support of the Treasury (which will have to make a major leap of faith), those critics need to frame their complaints very carefully if we are to avoid yet worse problems.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The act of believing in something despite lack of proof of its truth or existence, or the attempt of something without being sure of its possible outcome."
      ],
      "id": "en-leap_of_faith-en-noun-4oumbv1B",
      "links": [
        [
          "believing",
          "believe"
        ],
        [
          "lack",
          "lack"
        ],
        [
          "proof",
          "proof"
        ],
        [
          "truth",
          "truth"
        ],
        [
          "existence",
          "existence"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(figuratively) The act of believing in something despite lack of proof of its truth or existence, or the attempt of something without being sure of its possible outcome."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "act of faith"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "figuratively"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "cmn",
          "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
          "sense": "act of believing in something despite proof",
          "word": "選擇相信"
        },
        {
          "code": "cmn",
          "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
          "roman": "xuǎnzé xiāngxìn",
          "sense": "act of believing in something despite proof",
          "word": "选择相信"
        },
        {
          "code": "cmn",
          "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
          "sense": "act of believing in something despite proof",
          "word": "信仰之躍"
        },
        {
          "code": "cmn",
          "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
          "roman": "xìnyǎng zhī yuè",
          "sense": "act of believing in something despite proof",
          "tags": [
            "literary"
          ],
          "word": "信仰之跃"
        },
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "act of believing in something despite proof",
          "word": "uskon hyppy"
        },
        {
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "act of believing in something despite proof",
          "tags": [
            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "acte de foi"
        },
        {
          "code": "el",
          "lang": "Greek",
          "roman": "tyflí písti",
          "sense": "act of believing in something despite proof",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
          ],
          "word": "τυφλή πίστη"
        },
        {
          "code": "it",
          "lang": "Italian",
          "sense": "act of believing in something despite proof",
          "tags": [
            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "atto di fede"
        },
        {
          "code": "pl",
          "lang": "Polish",
          "sense": "act of believing in something despite proof",
          "word": "skok wiary"
        },
        {
          "code": "pt",
          "lang": "Portuguese",
          "sense": "act of believing in something despite proof",
          "word": "salto da fé"
        },
        {
          "code": "es",
          "lang": "Spanish",
          "sense": "act of believing in something despite proof",
          "tags": [
            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "salto de fe"
        }
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "Søren Kierkegaard"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "leap of faith"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "Often attributed to Søren Kierkegaard, although he never used the exact wording.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "leaps of faith",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "leaps of faith"
      },
      "expansion": "leap of faith (plural leaps of faith)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "act of faith"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English terms with usage examples",
        "Mandarin terms with non-redundant manual transliterations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "He took a leap of faith by publishing his first book independently.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2010, Christopher Nolan, Inception (motion picture), spoken by Saito (Ken Watanabe)",
          "text": "Don't you want to take a leap of faith? Or become an old man, filled with regret, waiting to die alone?",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2021 July 28, Nigel Harris, “Comment: Chasing shadows will fail”, in RAIL, number 936, page 3",
          "text": "Considering that the GBR proposal is supported by DfT (which would lose considerable power) with the support of the Treasury (which will have to make a major leap of faith), those critics need to frame their complaints very carefully if we are to avoid yet worse problems.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The act of believing in something despite lack of proof of its truth or existence, or the attempt of something without being sure of its possible outcome."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "believing",
          "believe"
        ],
        [
          "lack",
          "lack"
        ],
        [
          "proof",
          "proof"
        ],
        [
          "truth",
          "truth"
        ],
        [
          "existence",
          "existence"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(figuratively) The act of believing in something despite lack of proof of its truth or existence, or the attempt of something without being sure of its possible outcome."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "figuratively"
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "Søren Kierkegaard"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "cmn",
      "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
      "sense": "act of believing in something despite proof",
      "word": "選擇相信"
    },
    {
      "code": "cmn",
      "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
      "roman": "xuǎnzé xiāngxìn",
      "sense": "act of believing in something despite proof",
      "word": "选择相信"
    },
    {
      "code": "cmn",
      "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
      "sense": "act of believing in something despite proof",
      "word": "信仰之躍"
    },
    {
      "code": "cmn",
      "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
      "roman": "xìnyǎng zhī yuè",
      "sense": "act of believing in something despite proof",
      "tags": [
        "literary"
      ],
      "word": "信仰之跃"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "act of believing in something despite proof",
      "word": "uskon hyppy"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "act of believing in something despite proof",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "acte de foi"
    },
    {
      "code": "el",
      "lang": "Greek",
      "roman": "tyflí písti",
      "sense": "act of believing in something despite proof",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "τυφλή πίστη"
    },
    {
      "code": "it",
      "lang": "Italian",
      "sense": "act of believing in something despite proof",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "atto di fede"
    },
    {
      "code": "pl",
      "lang": "Polish",
      "sense": "act of believing in something despite proof",
      "word": "skok wiary"
    },
    {
      "code": "pt",
      "lang": "Portuguese",
      "sense": "act of believing in something despite proof",
      "word": "salto da fé"
    },
    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "sense": "act of believing in something despite proof",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "salto de fe"
    }
  ],
  "word": "leap of faith"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-26 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (93a6c53 and 21a9316). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

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