BELIEVER

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does believer mean? 

• BELIEVER (noun)
  The noun BELIEVER has 2 senses:

1. a supporter who accepts something as true

2. a person who has religious faith

  Familiarity information: BELIEVER used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BELIEVER (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A supporter who accepts something as true

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

believer; truster

Hypernyms ("believer" is a kind of...):

admirer; booster; champion; friend; protagonist; supporter (a person who backs a politician or a team etc.)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "believer"):

abiogenist (a believer in abiogenesis)

apostle (an ardent early supporter of a cause or reform)

colonialist (a believer in colonialism)

Confucian; Confucianist (a believer in the teachings of Confucius)

evolutionist (a person who believes in organic evolution)

imperialist (a believer in imperialism)

Malthusian (a believer in Malthusian theory)

vitalist (one who believes in vitalism)

Derivation:

believe (accept as true; take to be true)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A person who has religious faith

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

believer; worshiper; worshipper

Hypernyms ("believer" is a kind of...):

religious person (a person who manifests devotion to a deity)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "believer"):

theist (one who believes in the existence of a god or gods)

theosophist (a believer in theosophy)

sun worshiper (someone who worships the sun)

pilgrim (someone who journeys to a sacred place as an act of religious devotion)

pantheist (someone who believes that God and the universe are the same)

numerologist (a believer in numerology)

mystic; religious mystic (someone who believes in the existence of realities beyond human comprehension)

monotheist (a believer in one god)

devil worshiper (someone who worships devils)

Holonyms ("believer" is a member of...):

denomination (a group of religious congregations having its own organization and a distinctive faith)

Derivation:

believe (follow a credo; have a faith; be a believer)

 Context examples 

To the believer, clouds of angels and confessors, and martyrs, armies of the sainted and the saved, were ever stooping over their struggling brethren upon earth, raising, encouraging, and supporting them.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

This, however, is thought to be a mere strain upon the text; for the words are these: ‘that all true believers break their eggs at the convenient end.’ And which is the convenient end, seems, in my humble opinion to be left to every man’s conscience, or at least in the power of the chief magistrate to determine.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

She enjoyed it heartily and found the applause of her boys more satisfying than any praise of the world, for now she told no stories except to her flock of enthusiastic believers and admirers.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)