unbeliever en · NOUN
Pronunciation
Etymology
From un- + believer, perhaps a corruption of earlier wanbeliever (“unbeliever”).
Meanings
-
One who does not believe, particularly in a deity (used by believers to describe people who do not believe in the same deity or deities as themselves).
One of the emcees, going for a cheap laugh had said "classical musicians, we all know what they're like," and I heard several voices from the audience reply, "Oh yeah, what are they like?" But the classical concert certainly convinced the unbelievers.
1979 August 18, Maida Tilchen, “The Diversity of Women's Music”, in Gay Community News, volume 7, number 5, page 9:`Well, I suppose that we must try it,' I said; and the others assented in their various ways - Leo, as though it were the best joke in the world; Job, in respectful disgust; and Mahomed, with an invocation to the Prophet, and a comprehensive curse upon all unbelievers and their ways of thought and travel.
1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC:I tried to persuade some of the men to come and save you, but they would not do it, saying: ‘Let the unbelievers kill one another if they wish. It is none of our affair, and if we go and interfere with Ali-ben-Ahmed’s plans we shall only stir up a fight with our own people.’
1913, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Return of Tarzan, New York: Ballantine Books, published 1963, page 86:
Forms
| Spelling | Features | Labels | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| unbelievers | Number=Plur | lexicographic |