incredulity

UK/ˌɪnkɹɪˈdjuːlɪti/US/ˌɪnkɹɪˈdjuːlɪti/

nounC1Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #14,753 of 15,258neutral

Incredulity is refusal to believe what you are being told. A look of incredulity.

It is stronger than doubt and shows before anybody has decided anything. Incredulity is often the right response and is almost never the polite one.

Definitions of incredulity

1nounincredulityRefusal to believe what you are being told.C1
“The incredulity in the room was total.”

incredulity is a feeling.

Where it comes from

Latin incredulitas, from in-, not, plus credere, to believe, the root of creed and credit.

Latin
incredulitas
Old French
incredulité
Middle English
incredulite
English, today
incredulity

Built from

-itas · Latin — -ity

Attested since 1430. From Middle English incredulite, from Old French incredulité, from Latin incredulitas, from Latin incredulus (“unbelieving”) + -itas (“-ity”), equivalent to incredulous + ity.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

incredulity in the wild

Argument from incredulity, also known as argument from personal incredulity, appeal to common sense, or the divine fallacy, is a fallacy in informal logic.
Argument from incredulity
Arguments from incredulity can take the form: I cannot imagine how P could be true; therefore P must be false.
Argument from incredulity
The nurse hesitated, through sheer incredulity and surprise.
The Woman in White· Wilkie Collins

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

From Project Gutenberg, public domain. These sentences are from real books, shown to illustrate the word at work.

Related words

the -itas family

sanity

incredulity — used about once every 81,824 pages · #14,753 · point at the bar for the others

incredulous

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