"suspension of disbelief" meaning in English

See suspension of disbelief in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: suspensions of disbelief [plural]
Etymology: Coined by English poet, literary critic and philosopher Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1817. Etymology templates: {{coin|en|Q82409|in=1817}} Coined by English poet, literary critic and philosopher Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1817 Head templates: {{en-noun|-|suspensions of disbelief}} suspension of disbelief (usually uncountable, plural suspensions of disbelief)
  1. People's acceptance, for the sake of appreciation of art (including literature and the like), of what they know to be a nonfactual premise of the work of art. Tags: uncountable, usually Categories (topical): Fiction Synonyms: willing suspension of disbelief Related terms: suspend one's disbelief Translations (people's acceptance of what they know to be a nonfactual premise): 懷疑暫停 (Chinese Mandarin), 怀疑暂停 (huáiyí zàntíng) (Chinese Mandarin), ennakkoluulottomuus (Finnish), avoin mieli (Finnish), hitetlenkedés/hitetlenség/kételkedés/kétely felfüggesztése/feladása (Hungarian), frestun vantrúarinnar (Icelandic), zawieszenie niewiary [neuter] (Polish)
    Sense id: en-suspension_of_disbelief-en-noun-us1ccHR4 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Mandarin terms with non-redundant manual transliterations

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for suspension of disbelief meaning in English (4.2kB)

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          "name": "Fiction",
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        {
          "text": "In science fiction films, suspension of disbelief is essential.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1955, Donald Keene, “The Japanese Theatre”, in Japanese Literature, page 63",
          "text": "On the other hand, Chikamatsu could induce a suspension of disbelief with the same means, thus producing an effect of reality within basic unreality. (The suspension of disbelief is, of course, nothing new to Western audiences.)",
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        },
        {
          "ref": "2010 June 17, John Landis, “John Landis on why Ray Harryhausen's effects are still so special”, in The Guardian, →ISSN",
          "text": "All films require \"suspension of disbelief\" to work effectively. And every film creates its own unspoken rules to accomplish this.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2022 January 7, Jordan Calhoun, “The One Thing TV Characters Don’t Talk About”, in Humans Being, The Atlantic",
          "text": "Characters are either rich, comfortable, or struggling, but we rarely know how rich, how comfortable, or how much they struggle in concrete-enough terms to relate to. Money is involved in every important decision in one’s life; TV characters simply frown at a bank statement or gasp at a hidden figure on a piece of paper. The topic of money requires the most awkward suspension of disbelief in fiction.",
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        "People's acceptance, for the sake of appreciation of art (including literature and the like), of what they know to be a nonfactual premise of the work of art."
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          "code": "cmn",
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          "sense": "people's acceptance of what they know to be a nonfactual premise",
          "word": "懷疑暫停"
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          "roman": "huáiyí zàntíng",
          "sense": "people's acceptance of what they know to be a nonfactual premise",
          "word": "怀疑暂停"
        },
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          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "people's acceptance of what they know to be a nonfactual premise",
          "word": "ennakkoluulottomuus"
        },
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "people's acceptance of what they know to be a nonfactual premise",
          "word": "avoin mieli"
        },
        {
          "code": "hu",
          "lang": "Hungarian",
          "sense": "people's acceptance of what they know to be a nonfactual premise",
          "word": "hitetlenkedés/hitetlenség/kételkedés/kétely felfüggesztése/feladása"
        },
        {
          "code": "is",
          "lang": "Icelandic",
          "sense": "people's acceptance of what they know to be a nonfactual premise",
          "word": "frestun vantrúarinnar"
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          "code": "pl",
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          "sense": "people's acceptance of what they know to be a nonfactual premise",
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          "word": "zawieszenie niewiary"
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      "word": "willing suspension of disbelief"
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    {
      "code": "cmn",
      "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
      "sense": "people's acceptance of what they know to be a nonfactual premise",
      "word": "懷疑暫停"
    },
    {
      "code": "cmn",
      "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
      "roman": "huáiyí zàntíng",
      "sense": "people's acceptance of what they know to be a nonfactual premise",
      "word": "怀疑暂停"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "people's acceptance of what they know to be a nonfactual premise",
      "word": "ennakkoluulottomuus"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "people's acceptance of what they know to be a nonfactual premise",
      "word": "avoin mieli"
    },
    {
      "code": "hu",
      "lang": "Hungarian",
      "sense": "people's acceptance of what they know to be a nonfactual premise",
      "word": "hitetlenkedés/hitetlenség/kételkedés/kétely felfüggesztése/feladása"
    },
    {
      "code": "is",
      "lang": "Icelandic",
      "sense": "people's acceptance of what they know to be a nonfactual premise",
      "word": "frestun vantrúarinnar"
    },
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      "code": "pl",
      "lang": "Polish",
      "sense": "people's acceptance of what they know to be a nonfactual premise",
      "tags": [
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      "word": "zawieszenie niewiary"
    }
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  "word": "suspension of disbelief"
}

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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