Believes vs Beliefs – How to Use Each Correctly
What’s the Difference Between Believes and Beliefs?
Contents
Believes and beliefs have similar meanings, spellings, and pronunciations. However, each word has a different part of speech. Therefore, it is important not to mix up the two.
Believes is a the third person singular conjugation of the verb believe, which means to think, or have faith, that something is true without having proof.
- My toddler still believes in ghosts.
Beliefs is the plural form of the noun belief. It simply refers to something that people believe, or in other words, something that people think is true.
- Many Christians hold similar beliefs to Muslims, although they may not know it.
Now, let’s go over a few ways to use these words correctly.
Using Believes in a Sentence
When to use believes: Believes is a conjugation of the verb believe. It only appears in the simple present tense, after a singular third person subject such as he, she, or it. It means to think something is real or true. It often appears in the context of religious faith, superstitions, or things people think are probably true but aren’t completely sure.
For example,
- Suzy believes in God.
- Christopher believes in Santa Claus.
- I believe it might rain later tonight.
When someone wants to use believe to show that they think someone or something exists, they usually follow the word with the preposition in. In is not necessary if the word following believe acts as the subject of a second clause.
Using Beliefs in a Sentence
When to use beliefs: A belief is something that someone thinks is true. The plural form adds s.
For example,
- Most religions consist of a set of common beliefs that the worshippers share.
- Beliefs and superstitions regarding the unluckiness of black cats cause the poor animals to experience heightened instances of abuse.
The reason that most people accidentally write beliefs as believes is because many nouns that end in f change the f to v or ve in the plural form. Examples of this include leaf/leaves, wolf/wolves, and scarf/scarves amongst others.
Remembering Believes vs. Beliefs
There are two easy ways to remember which word to use and when.
First, like most other regular third person singular verbs, just add s to believe. Like most other regular nouns, just add s to belief.
However, it is possible that you get confused because of the other nouns that end in f that change the f to v in the plural form. If this is the case, you can use the second piece of information. Many nouns that end in f, that also have two vowels in a row preceding that f, do not change the f to v. These include roof/roofs, chief/chiefs, and oaf/oafs. Of course, this isn’t true for all words. One notable exception is loaf/loaves. However, the fact that chief doesn’t change to chieves could help, since chief and belief share the last three letters.
Outside Examples
- Batiste says that Colbert believes his show is a service to the community. –New York Daily News
- IN CASE you had forgotten, this is what decency and common sense sound like: “I believe the women.” –The Washington Post
- “I’m fine where I’m at right now. Ain’t nothing wrong with feeling bad for what you believe in. What’s right is right and what’s wrong is wrong. I stand behind my beliefs.’’ –New York Post
- Morgan Freeman is host and executive producer of ‘The Story of God’ on National Geographic Channel, which takes viewers all over the world on a quest to understand a wide variety of religious beliefs and practices. –Houston Chronicle
Quiz: Believes vs. Beliefs
Instructions: Fill in the blanks with the correct word, either believes or beliefs.
- I told him that his wife is cheating on him, but he never ____________ me.
- Your teaching ________________ are part of what make you a good teacher.
- She always talks to her tomato plants because she _____________ it makes them produce juicer fruit.
See answers below.
Article Summary
Should I use believes or beliefs? These words are similar but have different parts of speech. Therefore, grammatically speaking, they cannot be interchanged.
- Believes is a verb meaning to suppose something or to think something is credible.
- Beliefs is the noun form of believe. It means something one thinks seems likely or something one has faith is true.
If you get confused between these two words, just remove the s to make it more clear which one is the verb and which is the noun.
Answers
- believes
- beliefs
- believes