doubt
Pluraldoubts
Pluraldoubts
Formsdoubts, doubting, doubted
- 1A feeling of uncertainty or disbelief about something; a particular instance of feeling uncertain or disbelieving.
There is little doubt about who will win the election.
A nagging doubt crept into his mind as he reread the contract.
UsageSome doubt or little doubt for a general feeling; doubts about a plan for separate worries. No doubt often means 'surely'.
Similaruncertainty, misgiving, skepticism, suspicion, reservation
Oppositeconfidence, belief, faith
Note
The fixed phrase no doubt acts as a sentence adverb meaning "surely" or "presumably," as in A Christmas Carol (1843), where Dickens describes a pretty young mouth made for kissing, "as no doubt it was."
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol, first published in 1843. en.wikisource.org
- The narrator describes a pretty woman's mouth as made for kissing and adds the exact words quoted. gutenberg.org
- 2To be unsure about something, to lack confidence in it, or to question whether it is true.
Many scientists doubt the accuracy of that early measurement.
He doubted his own memory after hearing the recording.
UsageOften doubt that or doubt if. I doubt it means you think it is not true; suspect leans the other way.
- 3To harbor a suspicion about someone or something, or to suspect that something is the case.
I walk by the Rule of my Maſter, you walk by the rude working of your fancies. You are counted thieves already, by the Lord of the way; therefore, I doubt you will not be found true men at the end of the way.
1678, John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress from This WorldNote
In Scotland the verb still leans toward belief rather than away from it: "I doubt he's gone home" means "I suspect he has." Like I'm afraid, it usually introduces something unwelcome, as when Walter Scott has Bruce say "I doubt I have slain Comyn." Elsewhere it belongs to older prose such as Bunyan's. A modern reader can easily mistake it for the everyday "disbelieve" meaning, which is nearly its opposite.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 2 facts
- Walter Scott gives Bruce the words "I doubt I have slain Comyn" in his notes to The Lord of the Isles. en.wiktionary.org
- Bunyan's prose uses doubt to mean suspect. gutenberg.org
Less common meanings
- 4A question about something one has not fully understood, especially one put to a teacher for explanation.
Before the exam, she emailed the professor with one last doubt about the reading list.
He stayed back to clear his doubts before the exam.
UsageCommon in have a doubt (about a topic) and clear or clarify one's doubts.
Note
Indian English gives the word a classroom meaning: a doubt is a question you bring to a teacher, not a misgiving you carry. "I have just one doubt, miss" asks for an explanation and casts no suspicion on anyone. Other varieties have dropped this use, so outside India "I have a doubt" can sound like distrust when only a question was meant.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 1 fact
- The question or point-of-uncertainty sense formerly existed outside India and has become obsolete there. en.wiktionary.org
- 5To fear or dread something, especially to expect with dread that harm or misfortune is coming.
Note
The fearful side of the verb survives in older prose and verse. Its object is the danger itself: in a 1596 English translation of Commynes the horsemen "doubted the enimies sally," meaning they expected it and dreaded it, not that they questioned whether it would come. Scott's Lady of the Lake (1810) still has "doubt not aught from mine array."
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 4 facts
- Older prose and verse use transitive doubt to mean fear or dread, with the feared thing as its object. en.wiktionary.org
- An English translation of Commynes was published in 1596. arundelcastle.org
- The translation describes horsemen who feared an enemy sortie, using the quoted wording. en.wiktionary.org
- Walter Scott wrote The Lady of the Lake, first published in 1810. walterscott.lib.ed.ac.uk
- 6To fill a person with fear, so that they are frightened.
Note
Here the fear runs the other way: the subject frightens someone, and the frightened person is the object. In John Fletcher's Bonduca (c. 1613; published 1647), the valor of Caratach "more doubts me then all Britain," so it frightens the speaker more than the whole country does. It is the causative partner of the dreading sense.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origin
Latin dubitāre ("to be uncertain, to hesitate") passed into Old French as douter and then into Middle English as douten, the source of the verb. Where dubitō itself came from is uncertain, but one theory connects it with dubius ("wavering, doubtful"), going back in the end to duo ("two"). Early modern spelling reformers put the b into the spelling to match the Latin, but English speakers have never pronounced it. The noun has the same Old French origin.